The gray squad rebounded from an early deficit to defeat blue 4-2 and clinch the first Broward Baseball Fall Classic on the A. Hugh Adams Central Campus.
The best-of-three series was played under the lights at Broward College’s baseball complex on November 3 and 6. Gray won the opening game 13-4.
Serving as honorary head coaches for the inaugural event were Sean Guerin, chair of the Broward College District Board of Trustees, who coached the blue team, and Paul Tanner, a member of the Broward College District Board of Trustees and its immediate past chair, who coached the gray team. After the final out, the gray squad treated Tanner to one of the traditions of the game – a Gatorade shower.
The series format called for Broward College’s fall roster to be split into two teams to vie for the title in a best-of-three intra-squad series. The series added a competitive touch to the Seahawks’ fall and winter training as they work toward the spring season, which officially starts February 1 against the State College of Florida Manatee-Sarasota Manatees. Last year, the Seahawks posted a 32-14 record.
Both head coaches selected a most valuable player from his squad. Tanner picked sophomore Anthony Boza on the basis of his offensive prowess, both at bat and on the bases. Guerin selected sophomore J.R. Pryor for what Guerin called “his guts and take-no-prisoners attitude while at the plate and running the bases.”
The teams even worked together to create a little mischief. “They arranged for a fake bench-clearing fight that I was not aware of and almost put me in cardiac arrest,” said Bob Deutschman, Broward College’s head baseball coach.
“I had been scheming that little idea for some time,” Guerin said. “We forgot about it on Tuesday, which worked out fine for the finale on Friday.”
“Overall, the event was a great success and an outstanding way for our program to move out of the fall season and toward the spring,” Deutschman said.
Athletics is a traditional part of college life in America, Tanner said, and as such, it provides an exciting part of the college experience for students and their families.
“We are a segue in life to create opportunities,” Tanner said. “Having fun, competing in sports, involving your families, both immediate and extended, are not contrary to the experience at Broward College.”
Broward College has traditionally been at or near the top among Florida’s community colleges offering interscholastic playing opportunities. The college currently offers men’s interscholastic competition in baseball and basketball, and for women in volleyball, basketball, softball and tennis. A club team program in men’s and women’s soccer begins in early 2010.
Only two of the 23 Florida colleges competing in Region 8 of the National Junior College Athletic Association offer more interscholastic teams than Broward’s six: Daytona Beach College and Indian River State College each offer seven. Five Florida community colleges offer no interscholastic sports.
“Baseball, soccer, basketball are great ways to reach out to the community in Broward and bring them into the school and let them know our complete mission,” Tanner said. “(It’s) just as important as seeing us advertise on the side of a bus. If a family sits in the stands and has a wonderful experience and realizes that we offer upward mobility through education, then the next step is to come further onto campus and find out how they can improve their lives via a degree or certificate program.”
Trustees Guerin and Tanner also are leading supporters of the college’s inaugural Lee Wheat Home Run Derby, scheduled for February 21, 2010 at the A. Hugh Adams Central Campus baseball complex. Proceeds from the event will support Broward’s commitment to athletic facility enhancement for student athletes.
“Athletics will only continue to help build the culture of Broward College and the sense of pride our students, faculty and staff have for this awesome institution,” Guerin said. The college’s athletic facilities, he said, are in need of improvement.
“It is truly a testament to the coaching staff that we still compete at the level we do with the facilities we have,” Guerin said.
“Not only is it difficult to prepare for competition and gel as a team with the way we are set up, it certainly inhibits our ability to recruit talented athletes who are accustomed to better facilities in their respective high schools.”
The Lee Wheat Home Run Derby is named in honor of the college’s second baseball coach, who pitched in the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians and Brooklyn Dodgers organizations before coming to Broward to coach from 1966 to 1990. Coach Wheat died in 2008.
The home run derby will offer baseball and softball hitting opportunities at a variety of levels of play.
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