Oxford’s Brooks picks up his 500th coaching victory, Yellow Jackets win No. 20 in ‘outstanding’ outing against Hickman
By Al Muskewitz
OXFORD – The Oxford Yellow Jackets scored a pair of major milestones to start its second week of the Choccolocco Park Spring Break Experience – one very personal, one team-centered.
The Yellow Jackets took down Hickman (Mo.) 7-1 in one of their best outings of the year and it was significant on a number of fronts. It was their 20thvictory of the season and gave coach Wes Brooks his 500thcareer victory in 21 seasons as a head ball coach.
“I didn’t tell anybody until after the game was over,” Brooks said. “It’s about us. It’s not about me, it’s about us.
“And it was significant that our team got 20 wins. To me, you’ve had a pretty good year if you got 20 wins, you’ve had a great year if you got 30 and when you push mid- to upper-30s, you’re talking about having an opportunity to win championships.”
The AHSAA lists Brooks, 44, as the 16thbaseball coach in state history to reach the 500-win plateau. He is now 500-245 all-time, with 429 wins coming during his 17 seasons at Oxford and 71 in four seasons at Wellborn.
The milestone win was secured within hours of the 26th anniversary of the March 30, 1996, passing of Wes’ father, Jimmy Brooks.
With first-year assistant Josh Stevens calling their pitches, Peyton Watts and Hayes Harrison scattered five hits over seven innings. At the plate, the Jackets hammered three extra-base hits with Miguel Mitchell’s bases-loaded triple in the fourth inning breaking open a close game.
Watts worked the first four innings and gave up two hits while striking out six. Harrison pitched the final three, allowing three hits and striking out seven.
The Yellow Jackets carried a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the fourth. They loaded the bases with a single, walk and error and scored a run on Tide Gann’s infield grounder. Mitchell followed with his bases-clearing triple and he scored on Sam Robertson’s bunt.
Watts and Hudson Gilman had two hits apiece for Oxford.
“We played outstanding tonight,” Brooks said. “You get six new coaches in a year, it’s hard to get it right as far as everybody speaking the same language and being on the same page, sort of a heartbeat as one,” Brooks said. “In the last four or five days I think we’ve found a really good way.
“I think we have kind of found our groove as this year’s team and I think that is significant for tonight for me to be able to kind of sit back and kind of let our coaches coach and I step in where I’m needed.”
That’s not the say he’s stopping at 500 wins. The game is so much in his blood.
“I’ve had some opportunities come up over the last five years and I think in the next five years there are going to be some opportunities come up,” Brooks said, “but I will tell you this: I think I’m going to coach ‘til I die.
“I’ve had some opportunities to get off the field and I can’t let it go. I just can’t let the coaching part go.
“It probably has to do with, a little bit, back in 2014, of winning a championship in 2012 and realizing I could have helped those guys be better men more than I did. So, at some point in 2014 I’m like I’m not going to pass up this opportunity to be able to help them as men in a positive way.”
More proof that he’s had that influence arrived shortly after word of his milestone win started to spread. No less than 20 minutes after the final out his phone buzzed with a congratulatory text.
It was from a player he coached in 2010.
Hickman 000 100 0 – 1 5 2
Oxford 101 500 x – 7 6 3
WP: Peyton Watts. 2B: Hickman 2, Hudson Gilman (O), Peyton Watts (O). 3B: Miguel Mitchell (O).
