Throughout the spring, you can spot Mike Maynard at any baseball game in Central Virginia where good talent is butting heads. For the last 13 years Maynard has been the coach of the Albemarle Post 74 American Legion baseball team, and he’s consistently there evaluating players for that the summer squad. This spring though he’ll move from the stands to the dugout when he takes over as baseball coach at William Monroe.
Already the school’s boys basketball coach, Maynard takes over for Mark Arrington who stepped aside after three years as the team’s skipper.
“I really appreciate William Monroe giving me this opportunity,” Maynard said. “Mark got this program heading in the right direction and I think that if we continue to work hard that there’s a good chance we’ll have a pretty good baseball team.”
An Albemarle graduate, Maynard played shortstop in high school before heading to Ferrum College. At Ferrum he played both third base and shortstop for five-time Virginia coach of the year Abe Naff who quickly became a coaching mentor.
“Coach Naff and I are still close and keep in contact,” Maynard said. “I learned an awful lot from him. I can remember having to field around 200 ground balls before practice ever started. For him, all infielders had to report 20 minutes before practice started. You were going to learn how to field a ground ball properly.”
After his time with the Panthers, Maynard played in the Rockingham County baseball league before being offered the job to coach Albemarle’s legion squad. Since then, Post 74 has won at least 23 games each season since he took over.
This summer there were three players from Monroe on Maynard’s team including Danny Morris who heads to Hagerstown Junior College this fall, Logan Forloines and Jordan Gentry. Fellow Dragon Ryan Morris played for the Albemarle Post 74 junior legion team under Greg Wells.
With Forloines, Gentry and Ryan Morris all back for their junior years, familiarity should not be an issue for Maynard or his players this spring, which made jumping on board all the more easy. Throw in renovations in the makings for a handful of the school’s progams, and Maynard snapped at the chance.
“I’m just really happy to be doing this,” Maynard said. “Baseball is my true sports background and I’m going to give it 100 percent.”
At Monroe Maynard guided Monroe to its first ever Region II playoff victory in basketball during the 2008-2009 season. He will remain the team’s coach this winter. Now when it comes to this spring, the Dragons’ faithful will be looking forward to see if the team’s new coach can do the same from dugout.
