For the Coffee High junior and senior baseball players, the third time might be the charm. When the 2014 season opened, these young men were playing baseball under their third head coach in three years. They barely had time to get used to a new system when they found themselves learning another one. It’s hard to be successful with that kind of turnover, but Lady Luck is smiling on the Trojans this year. The Trojans, under new head coach Josh Cole, were less than 24 hours removed from sweeping Camden County to preserve an undefeated region record as of press time. “Our guys are playing very well on both sides of the ball right now. They’re playing with confidence and doing things the right way,” says Cole.
While Cole will always credit any success his teams enjoy to the players themselves, there is no question that his presence at Coffee High has done wonders for the Trojan baseball program. Cole came to Coffee from McEachearn High School, where he spent one year as an assistant. He had applied for the head coaching position up there. He was not offered the job but McEachern officials were so impressed with him, they asked him to come aboard as head assistant.
Cole went to McEachern from Tattnall County, where he was head baseball coach for four years. He and his wife Allison are from Henry County and they thought they wanted to return to the metro area. “McEachern was an ideal job for a coach. It has a great tradition and great facilities,” he says. McEachern won the Region 4-6A title in 2013 and went into the playoffs ranked number one according to some polls. As great as last season was, the Coles found themselves longing for South Georgia. Cole had played baseball at Andrew College then went to Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. Injuries limited his college baseball career to just two years. At GSU, he coached at Southeast Bulloch as an assistant then went to Tattnall as head coach.
Though he enjoyed an excellent year in 2013 at McEachern, the pull of South Georgia and the desire to be a head coach were too great. When the Coffee job came open, Cole leapt at the opportunity. “My wife and I love South Georgia. We loved Statesboro and we saw some of the same characteristics in Douglas. We love the atmosphere in Coffee County. I had also kept up with the Coffee program over the years. There is a great baseball tradition at Coffee High. I felt confident I could bring my system to Douglas and make something happen,” he says.
The scheme that Cole and his staff employ is nothing complicated. Baseball success starts with pitching and that’s the point from which Cole builds his team. “We want to establish our pitching first and then put good defense behind our pitchers. We don’t have a single hitting technique that we teach. We develop hitters as individuals. We want them comfortable at the plate and we try to maximize their swing,” he says. With his pitchers, Cole wants them to keep the ball down in the zone and to use the entire plate. If he can get his pitchers to keep the ball low but in the strike zone, they will force contact and allow the defense to do its work. “It’s hard for high school hitters to make good contact on strikes low in the zone. Great teams all have great pitching staffs. That’s what we’re trying to develop,” he says.
To make things easier on his players, he and his staff made a conscious decision to keep everything simple this year. The Trojans have endured a great deal of turnover and instability over the last few years. Cole knew he had to implement his system but he didn’t want to overload his players with more new terminology and strategy. “We didn’t’ want them to strain to meet any new objectives. We used a few key terms and skills but overall kept things very simple. The kids responded well. We push them hard in practice and we ask a lot out of them. It’s a high paced practice, very similar to football practice,” he says. Coach Cole wants the Trojans to play faster so he had them practice much faster than they were used to. Everything is quicker and more intense, and it appears to be working. “We struggled in non-region play early on. We were searching for depth in the first few weeks of the season. But now we’re 6-0 in region play and the only team with an undefeated region record. We’ve swept Lowndes, Brunswick, and Camden. The kids are pretty competitive right now,” he says.
When coach Josh Cole was in high school at Henry County, he played baseball and football. And now he coaches both sports as well. At McEachern, he was an assistant football coach on a team that went 8-3 with an undefeated region record. The Indians lost in the first round to Colquitt County that year. At Coffee, he still coaches football, though he will be an assistant with the ninth grade team. “This is the first time I’m not on the varsity staff. But it’s a neat opportunity working with ninth graders. It gives me more time in the offseason to take care of baseball stuff,” he says. It also gives him more time with his wife, Allison, and two sons, John Parker, four, and Archie, almost two. “They are fantastic,” he states. “I couldn’t do what I do without them.”
Coach’s Corner/South Georgia/April 2014
Josh Cole
Coffee High School
Douglas, Georgia
Robert Preston Jr.
Photography: Micki K Photography
First-year Coffee coach has Trojans in middle of playoff hunt
