Stacy Hester is back in high school baseball.
More than two years after not being retained as New Hope High School baseball coach, Hester was hired as baseball coach at Carroll Academy, a Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class AA school in Carrollton, about an hour and a half away from Columbus.
“I think it’s going to be a good deal,” Hester said Friday. “It’s a small private school and it’s going to work out fine. I am just going to coach baseball because I don’t want to tie up all of the time and take away from my landscaping business.”
Hester replaces Sim Shanks, who also was the school’s athletic director, but Hester will only be the school’s baseball coach.
Carroll Academy Headmaster Steve Flemming said he is “thrilled” to have someone like Hester on board as coach at his school. He said he roomed with Hester when they were seniors participating in an All-Star basketball game and played with him in the summer in Greenville.
“He is a drill sergeant type of coach with a lot of discipline,” Flemming said. “He is a great fundamentalist. I expect nothing but great things from our baseball team in the future.”
Flemming said he kept up with Hester when he coached at Washington School and at New Hope. He said he isn’t scared by any of the stories he has heard in recent years about Hester because he said he has “ruffled a few feathers” himself. He said his philosophy is “if you’re in the education business and if you don’t make somebody upset, you’re not doing your job.” He said he has no doubt Hester will come in and build an even more successful program.
“I don’t feel like we’re taking a chance,” Flemming said. “We’re hiring an outstanding baseball coach and an outstanding man. I don’t have any reservations at all about hiring him.”
Hester said he received a phone call last Tuesday informing him of the opening. He said Flemming called him last Wednesday and brought him in for an interview last Thursday and offered him the job. Hester said he informed Flemming on Monday that he would accept the job. He said he learned Thursday night his hiring had been approved.
Hester is building a home between Grenada and Carrollton, so he will have a place to stay to avoid having to make the 90-minute drive to and from Columbus every day during baseball season. He anticipates starting work as coach with the Carroll Academy baseball program in January.
MAIS rules are different than ones in the Mississippi High School Activities Association in that member schools don’t have restrictions as to when they can start practicing and how long they can practice.
“I wanted to get back in it and see if I really miss it,” Hester said. “It’s going to be a lot different. We don’t have the numbers to choose from at Carroll Academy (compared to New Hope), but baseball is baseball. If I get a bunch of kids who want to work, I can make them pretty decent baseball players.”
In June 2009, Lowndes County School District Superintendent Mike Halford recommended Hester not be retained as New Hope High School’s baseball coach. None of the five school board members asked to have the issue of Hester’s status pulled from the consent agenda, where it could have been up for an open vote. The board then voted 5-0 to accept Halford’s recommendation.
Hester said he never has been given a reason why he wasn’t retained. He said Halford told him he didn’t need to be given a reason because as a coach he was an at-will employee and could be fired at any time, for any reason.
New Hope won 551 games in Hester’s 18 years as coach. It won state titles in 1996, ’98, and 2003, six North Half state titles, advanced to nine Final Fours since 1995, and was nationally ranked seven times.
In addition, the Trojans in 1996 set a national record and a state of Mississippi record for wins when they went 43-0. In 1996-97, New Hope won 51 consecutive games, including 68 straight against teams from the state of Mississippi.
Hester, who was baseball coach at Washington School prior to taking the job at New Hope High, has stayed active as a baseball coach the past few years. He has remained coach of Mississippi’s team that travels annually to the Junior Sunbelt Classic in McAlester, Okla. This summer, he was the coach of the Golden Triangle Jets in the Cotton States Baseball League. He led the Jets to the league’s title game, only to see the team lose to the North Delta Dealers.
After he wasn’t retained as baseball coach at New Hope High, Hester continued to work for New Hope schools as an elementary school physical education teacher to fulfill his retirement qualification with the district until he was terminated.
New Hope High Principal Lynn Wright and Hester were later fired for the improper purchase of a $15,000 lawnmower in 2007. The lawnmower was intended to cut the grass at New Hope High athletic facilities.
After he was not retained as baseball coach, two booster clubs Hester formed — the Diamond Club and the New Hope Baseball Club — were disbanded and their accounts closed, including the account from which payments toward the lawnmower were made. When the lessor contacted the new booster club, the Trojan Club, about the lease payment, Halford was notified, and Hester and Wright were fired.
In October 2010, Hester and Wright filed suit in federal court against the Lowndes County School District. They are asking for actual damages, court costs, and their jobs back. Hester said he isn’t sure when his case would go to court.
In both suits, the plaintiffs say the firings were unfounded and a breach of contract.
Reasons listed in Halford’s May 17 termination letter to Wright are failure to comply with district purchasing procedures, assisting an employee in illegally purchasing an item, and insubordination.
Reasons listed in Halford’s termination letter, issued on the same day, to Hester are violation of district policy and state law and insubordination.
Hester said he isn’t bothered by the fact his hiring may rekindle talk about his firing. He also said he isn’t worried about returning to coach at a private school because he said he isn’t sure there is a difference between the pressure coaches face to win at a public school compared to a private school.
Hester said he didn’t think it would take him this long to get back into coaching baseball at the high school level. He said he had applied for numerous jobs as a baseball coach (head and assistant coach) at schools in the greater Golden Triangle area but none of them would give him a chance.
“I have tried for the past two years to get jobs and nobody wanted me,” Hester said. “I had to go far off because nobody in the area would hire me. Nobody would hire me as an assistant coach. Nobody would hire me as a coach who would do it for free.”
Hester said he still loved the game and that he was excited about the possibility of working with student-athletes who share his passion and who want to work hard to improve. He said he met with several of the players in the baseball program, and has heard the school had a “competitive” program under Shanks. He said his goal is to “take it to another level.” He said he would do that by remaining a disciplinarian and “holding kids accountable,” things he said he always has done.
“I am not the problem,” Hester said. “Society and the way people perceive me is the problem. I am tough on kids, but I am not abusive.”
Hester said he has learned a lot in the past few years and has done a lot of soul searching. He said he is a better man for what has happened and that he hopes he will be a better coach.
“It is a shame somebody had to fire you to make it happen, but God works in mysterious ways,” Hester said. “If you give me kids who will work hard I will give you a winner.
“I just want some closure to the fact and to what New Hope did to me, and is still doing to me. Somebody finally has given me a chance to do what I have always done and that is to coach kids and to make them better baseball players and better young men. That’s why I am still in it.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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