Special to the Elmore Autauga News
What could possibly go wrong?
Everything.
Well almost everything. One year ago this month Edgewood Academy hired Justin Jones as its head baseball coach. Jones is a lifelong resident of Millbrook, a former Stanhope Elmore baseball star, and a former player at Auburn and Faulkner. To say he was fired up and excited about becoming a head coach at a traditionally strong baseball school is a huge understatement.
“Edgewood had talent coming back this year. I knew I had a chance to not only further develop the program but to possibly go the distance and win it all. What’s so sad is that we would been playing for a state championship last week (May 4-May 7) had we reached our goals,” Jones said. “I feel like we had a big chance to do that.”
When Jones took over he worked constantly on all aspects of the program in addition to being an assistant football coach and classroom teacher. Jones worked on his baseball field frequently so that it would be ready for practices in January and the season opener in February. Fulfilling his dream of coaching the sport he loves was getting closer and closer. The calendar turned to January and the Wildcats started practice.
And then, beyond Jones control, things unraveled. The first thing that happened was the weather didn’t allow baseball to get off base. “We had so many cancellations because of the weather. I’m amazed we got to play hardly any games. Every time I turned around there was another deluge. We lost eight games to rain outs before you could blink an eye,” Jones explained.
What the weather did was set things back for the Wildcats. The first game played by the Wildcats was actually played in the annual Edgewood Tournament hosted by Edgewood at their school. By that time every year the Wildcats have quite a few games under their belt. Jones’ first game as a coach came way behind schedule at a tournament he was hosting (a time consuming chore). On top of all that the Wildcats did not have everyone healthy and all of Jones’ pitchers were not ready to go. “It was a great learning experience. The early season was filled with adversity. I think it prepared me for future setbacks early in a season,” Jones said.
Jones and the Wildcats pressed on, and after 10 games the Wildcats held a winning record at 6-4. “We were almost completely healthy. Things were really looking up,” Jones said. That was a time when the young Edgewood coach was feeling really good about what had been an unpredictable season. His ace pitcher, Cam Burleson, was ready to take the mound, and then it happened.
The season came to a screeching halt due to the coronavirus. “Cam didn’t throw a pitch in his senior season. He is going to play in college, so his career is not over, but just think about never playing as a senior,” Jones said. But the toughest thing he had to do was to tell his team the season was cancelled. Just when the Wildcats were ready to launch a serious bid for a state title, with a first year coach, it was over.
“I dreaded breaking it to the guys. It was real depressing for me but just thinking about how it would hit them emotionally, was, well, just hard to imagine. Breaking it to my four seniors was the toughest thing. Looking at those long, sad faces – the shock in their eyes. It killed me to tell them,” Jones explained. “No doubt it was the toughest thing I’ve had to do in my short career as a coach. It will probably be the toughest thing I will ever do as a coach.”
Jones said this season may have been disappointing in some ways, but it did prove to be a great training ground. The top Wildcat said he learned many valuable lessons, but the most important one is the one he stressed to his team. “Don’t take anything for granted. Play every game as if it is your last. You just don’t know what tomorrow holds,” Jones said.
