PLYMOUTH – In coaching there is a very fine line between a hardworking team and an overworked team. This year, Plymouth baseball coach Terry Perry walked it perfectly.
The Vikings finished the season with a 23-6 record, a Four Rivers Conference Crown, a Sectional title and a trip to the NCHSAA 1-A East Regional round of the playoffs, the furthest any Perry-coached team has gone before, making him the perfect choice for this year’s Washington Daily News Baseball Coach of the Year.
Perry, who is also the defensive coordinator for the Vikings’ football team, brings a lunch pail mentality to every team that he is a part of, but he does not turn the playeres into robots. Anybody who has watched a Plymouth baseball game this year saw the Vikings routinely cheering each other on a smiling throughout the game. Their spirit was infectious, and their chemistry fostered a family bond and a winning atmosphere.
“This was one of the best chemistry teams I had in any sport,” said Perry who has coached football and baseball for 20 years. “They just really cared for one another and played for one another. It was a team that you didn’t have to say much about playing for your school or your community because you saw that in their style of play. They played hard and they never shamed the name across their chest.”
Perry works his team hard but his players go all out for him because they know he cares.
“In the past 20 years I have coached under some great coaches – Harold Robinson, Jerry Godley, Brian Paschal, Bob Cody and that’s just to name a few – but I think the biggest thing that I have learned is that these kids don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care. I have always tried to let the kids know that we are out there to win baseball games, but also provide life lessons through the game of baseball.”
During his 20 years as a coach, Perry said that one of the most important lessons he has learned is to not let clubhouse issues fester.
“I think one of the biggest things that I have learned that has helped me as a coach is that if we have a problem on Monday it’s over on Monday. It doesn’t transfer to Tuesday,” Perry said.
On the field, Perry’s faith resides in the small-ball philosophy.
“My daddy was a small-ball guy. He liked to bunt or put it on the ground and have the other team have to make three plays: catch it, throw it, catch it, rather than a fly ball or strikeout,” Perry said. “We prefer line drives to ground balls. My dad was a bunt, steal and squeeze guy and I guess I’m just a lot like my dad.”
Ironically, his most successful team excelled on the strength of a heaving-hitting lineup led by Ronnell Blount, Chris Rogerson, Mister Davis and Sean Holloway.
“If you asked our players honestly, we have done less bunting this year than ever,” Perry said. “We had the Ronnells who could hit it in the gap, we had the Holloways that could hit in the gap and players of that type.”
Those type of players allowed for the school to foster some great moments like the time Plymouth hit back-to-back home runs to beat Perquimans in extras to clinch the conference crown, or when Blount successfully pulled off a delayed steal of home plate to knock off Southside in the eighth inning of the first round of the playoffs.
“Winning the conference championship was probably my favorite moment,” Perry said. “All the playoffs wins were special, also winning the Sectional title here was pretty special.”
As long as Perry’s at the helm of the Vikings’ ship, there should be plenty more special moments to add to the list.