Billy Ray Lee knows there is a fine line in coaching.
In more than 30 years as a coach, Lee has learned some players respond to one style of coaching while others need to be motivated another way.
Lee has seen that dynamic play out in his two years with the New Hope High School baseball program.
In that time, Lee has seen New Hope High coach Stacy Hester is a lot like him.
“Coach Hester is just like I was in Alabama,” said Lee, who coached at Pickens County High in Reform, Ala., from 1973-98. “I got onto kids when I thought they needed to be gotten onto. I tried to treat them fairly and he tries to do that.”
Lee is one of several area coaches who commented Saturday in response to news that Hester”s job as baseball coach at New Hope High is in jeopardy.
The Lowndes County School District Board appears ready to deliver a 5-0 vote that Hester not return as the Trojans” coach.
Hester said Lowndes County School District Superintendent Mike Halford told him he wouldn”t recommend he be retained based on the poll he took of the five members of the school board.
The school board could vote June 12 at its next scheduled meeting to determine Hester”s fate.
If that happens, Lee will be surprised.
“I can”t believe people are carrying some of things that happened as far as they are,” said Lee, who works with the varsity and the junior high teams at New Hope and is in charge of the school”s ninth-grade team. “It is kind of hard to put a term on it. I don”t think it should have gone this far. He was punished for the incident at Hernando and that should have been the end of it, I thought.”
Lee said he didn”t see a problem with how Hester coaches the baseball team. He said it often is difficult for a coach because some parents think a coach”s discipline on their son or daughter is too tough, while others believe it is not tough enough.
Through all of that, Lee said he never saw Hester play favorite to one player over another.
“He is hard on his kids but he is fair,” Lee said. “I saw coaches in the playoffs this year that were as vocal, if not more vocal than coach Hester. Coach Hester plays the player he feels is best equipped to play at that time. He makes that judgment based on how they practice and how they perform in games. I have never seen and have never known him to play a player because who he was or who his parents are. If you look at his stats, the players that play for him put the effort in and have performed.”
First-year assistant coach Eric Guerrero said he doesn”t know how things have gotten to the point where Hester might not return next season. He said he knew of New Hope”s tradition (five state titles, the past three, 1996, ”98, 2003 under Hester) before he arrived in Columbus and was excited to get a chance to work with Hester.
“I have learned so much in a short amount of time,” Guerrero said. “It goes to expectation. He expects the best out of everyone whether it be a player or a coach, and he expects you to live up to it, and if you don”t he will let you know. There is no fault in that. You know where you stand always with coach Hester.”
New Hope High assistant coach Chris Ball, who is Hester”s son in law, also said he didn”t know how the situation got to this point.
“He did get punished. If they thought he was a threat to the kids why did they put him back in the dugout?” Ball said. “I don”t understand how someone gets punished and they let him go after the punishment and then punish him again.”
Ball said Hester might be “loud” and a “disciplinarian,” and those are qualities that some people don”t like. He said he doesn”t know how the situation will end.
“If it can happen to him it can happen to anybody. It doesn”t matter what school,” Ball said. “It could be a bad trend.”
Heritage Academy baseball coach Steve Hancock, who worked as an assistant baseball coach at Columbus High from 1999-2001 and at New Hope High from 2002-04, said Hester is “a good man” and that he “respects” Hester and how hard he works, but that he isn”t involved in the situation at the school and didn”t want to say anything else.
New Hope High assistant coach Steve Younger and Caledonia High coach Sam Adams declined to comment for this story.
Messages left for Columbus High coach Jeff Cook and Hernando High coach Chris Chism weren”t returned.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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