Chucky38 said:
Good for Coach Smith. Those kids will learn a lot about baseball. I will guess that if he stays there a few years, they will be a good high school team. At a small high school it is amazing what good coaching can do.
A lot of it can be just convincing kids they want to play baseball. If football/basketball is so-so and you've got a great baseball coach, you just might start having a lot of your better athletes keep playing baseball up towards varsity.
Holy crap just saw McGregor went 3-20 last year. Time to go tell those JH kids and HS underclassmen that they can get a lot of playing time if they'll devote themselves to developing in baseball.
McGregor has never had dominant athletic programs, but they've generally had enough talent/ability to be good (at least in spurts). There's certainly enough athleticism in that community to build a baseball program, but a lot of that will be getting kids to keep playing after little league and getting a culture built up. A junior high baseball program would be a good place to start, especially in a community where a lot of kids/parents won't go out of pocket for select ball. The gap between LL and HS ball is a big hurdle for lots of kids.