4 Questions With Cardinal Gibbons Baseball Coach Jason Hamilton
We spoke with Cardinal Gibbons baseball coach Jason Hamilton about the impact COVID-19 had on last year’s team and how it’s affecting his athletes this year.
Q: What is your background as a baseball player, and when did you take over at Cardinal Gibbons as head coach?
A: My father was a high school baseball coach, so I was basically born on a baseball field. I played for a high school coaching legend, Tom Hysell, at Coconut Creek High School before playing at Jacksonville University for four years. I started coaching at Northeast in 1996 and moved to Gibbons in the fall of 2000 and have been at Gibbons ever since.
Q: Two seasons ago, you guys had an incredible year, finishing 23-8 during the 2018-19 season and advancing to the program’s first state championship game since 1987. You came up a little short, but talk about that season. It had to be pretty special?
A: Our 2019 season was a special one because we had a bunch of kids that simply refused to lose. I remember having such a tough road to get there, starting with the first game of the district and then seeing all D1-type arms all the way to the state championship. It was so much fun being able to experience playing in a state tournament game and now know why playing in that atmosphere is so appreciated and desired by teams that have been there before. It was a very gratifying experience being able to see our guys perform on our state’s biggest stage. I want to go back!
Q: Last season, it looked like you guys were on your way again with a 9-1 record, and then your season stopped. Was that disappointing?
A: Our 2019 team wasn’t exactly supposed to make the run, even though we were very good. We returned almost everyone in 2020, and the majority of those kids were three- and four-year starters in our program. We returned two big-time arms that could lead us back to Fort Myers. It was extremely disappointing on many levels, not just for our kids but for the families as well.
If we could take one thing away from the situation, then it would be to really appreciate and don’t take for granted any single day of time with your family and then in the weight room, practice, bonding with teammates, and games. I felt horribly for our seniors and our parents and still do to this day.
Q: Despite your overall record so far this year not being where you’d like it be, your team is still in good shape in district play as you guys get ready for the playoffs. How do you feel about your team’s chances?
A: We graduated a fantastic senior class last year and went to war this year with kids that were predominantly all JV players last year. We played a schedule that was one of the toughest in the state that was created pretty much for last year’s team. That isn’t an excuse because we play everybody and anybody no matter how good or bad we will be. We were in almost every game and lost a lot of close ones mainly because of the talent in the other dugouts and a lack of experience.
We still had very high expectations to make a run in the playoffs, but had a player test positive for COVID-19 this Saturday and are forced to bring a team filled with JV players and two kids that have played in a varsity game in their careers to American Heritage tonight to play Somerset in the first game of our district tournament. The new world we live in.
