Scotland first-year JV baseball coach Richard Bailey, right, talks with other coaches during a March 20 practice at McCoy Field in Laurinburg.
Brandon Hodge | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG — Richard Bailey is a Scotland staple. It’s where he’s coached football for 12 of his 32 years in the profession.
But football wasn’t his first love, he said. Baseball was.
And after not coaching it for 23 years, Bailey and baseball are back together.
Bailey returned to the diamond to become Scotland’s JV baseball coach this season, leading the team to a 6-2 start with wins in its first two Sandhills Athletic Conference games.
“I really do think we have a good, young group, especially if you add the three sophomores that are on the varsity right now (Kaden Hunsucker, Dawson Williams and Maddox Locklear) to what we have down here,” Bailey said. “We’ve had contributions from a lot of people. Our pitching I think has been pretty steady. We haven’t torn the cover off the baseball, but we’ve had some timely hitting. I also think we run the bases pretty good. We have a lot of guys that can steal, and we manufacture runs. We’ve won a bunch of one-run games. It’s been close games. So, we’ve been pretty resilient. Hopefully, we can keep it going.”
Bailey relieved former coach Phillip Blue, who helped the program go 9-5-1 overall and 4-1 in the SAC last year.
“They had an opening, they were looking for somebody,” Bailey said. “And I used to be a baseball coach. My son’s on the baseball team. I’m going to be at all the games anyway. So, my wife helped determine that it would be a good thing for me to help out the JV baseball team. And I was happy to do it ‘cause (Scotland baseball) coach (Ricky) Schattauer’s a good guy to work with.”
The history between Bailey and baseball goes back to his childhood. It was the sport he thought he’d dedicatedly coach.
It was the sport he made himself a name for, so much so that he went to UNC Wilmington to play it.
“I really played football and played basketball, but baseball was, if you asked people in Carteret County what I was known for, it was for playing baseball,” Bailey said. “My career was brief there, but I did go to UNCW to play baseball. I tell people my high school practice at East Carteret was every bit as good as my college practice at UNC Wilmington. There was very little difference. One other thing is my coach played at UNC Wilmington.”
Once he graduated from UNC Wilmington in 1991, Bailey took assistant football and baseball coaching jobs at Gates County High School in northeast North Carolina. He remained involved with both sports for nearly a decade before committing solely to the gridiron.
“I was a baseball coach before I ever was a football coach,” Bailey said. “I coached nine years as a baseball coach and a head baseball coach before I became a head football coach. Ironically enough, I get hired, and the head baseball coach of Gates County quits. And so, now I get promoted to be the head baseball coach. So, in my very first year, I was the assistant football coach at Gates County, but the head baseball coach. Of those nine years that I was involved in baseball, probably about six of those years, I was the head coach of a team, whether it be Gates County, Andrews or Pine Forest.”
Bailey was also the Post 99 American Legion coach for Carteret County while he attended UNC Wilmington and the JV baseball coach at Hoggard during his time student teaching.
While coaching American Legion ball, one of Bailey’s players was current Pinecrest baseball coach Jeff Hewitt.
“I coached him because he played at the same high school as I did, but he was four years younger than me,” Bailey said. “So he was a senior in high school, and I was a senior in college. And I ended up coaching the team that summer.”
Bailey’s last stint coaching baseball was at Jack Britt. After being hired to become the school’s first football coach in 2000, Bailey was ready to step aside from coaching baseball — until it called him back briefly.
“It was either my first or second year; I was the head football coach, but then one of the assistant baseball coaches quit,” Bailey said. “And I was the assistant baseball coach at Jack Britt for one year with Ron Bean. Ron Bean was the head coach. He asked me to come out of baseball retirement for a spring. And so, I did it just to help out, and that’s what I’m doing now.”
And although the game has changed some in recent years, it hasn’t affected how Bailey coaches his players much.
“It’s pretty much the same game,” Bailey said. “And the bases are still 90 feet apart. And the mound is still 60 foot, six inches, and field and ground balls are still the same. Hitting’s changed a little bit. There is a little bit of nuances that have changed over the years. But at the end of the day, it’s baseball. Definitely haven’t had to do a whole lot of new learning with it.”
Bailey and the Scotland JV baseball team return to action Monday at 4 p.m. at Western Harnett.
Brandon Hodge is the sports editor for The Laurinburg Exchange. He can be reached at 910-506-3171 or by email at bhodge@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BrandonHSports.