Brown reflects on ’92 team

But as years go by, those descriptions are often little more than hyperbole, as new players replace the old, and wins and losses both begin to dim in the recollections of the team’s supporters.

In the spring of 1992, however, baseball fans here in Warren County followed every pitch, catch, swing and run of a season that has proven to truly be unforgettable.

Coach Ronnie Brown, who helmed the Pioneer baseball team to the TSSAA state championship ‘ the school’s most recent team title to date ‘ that season, spoke with the Southern Standard last week as the 15-year anniversary of his club’s tournament title arrived. Even all these years later, the memories that special group of Pioneers provided are still deeply etched in their head coach’s memory.

‘I told (the players) at the beginning of the year that I felt we were a good baseball team. We had the makings of being a really good baseball team, and of being a team that could go far,’ said Brown, who recently retired after over 35 years as an educator, coach and school administrator.

‘I wasn’t thinking of the state at the time, but winning the region or something like that was a realistic goal. We had the core to do that, but I told them early it would take a lot of work.’

Twenty-eight wins ‘ balanced against just six losses ‘ later, all of that work paid off, as the Pioneers stormed out of the losers’ bracket in the Class AAA tournament and captured the title with back-to-back victories over perennial powerhouse Germantown, which had been on the winning side of Warren County’s first-round loss.

After that 11-2 opening-round setback, Warren County rebounded to defeat Montgomery Bell Academy 9-3, in a game which took two days to play thanks to a 22-hour rain delay. Then despite building a 6-0 lead in the semifinals against Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett, the Pioneers had to old on for dear life, but prevailed to secure a spot in the finals.

‘That meant we had to beat Germantown twice,’ Brown said. ‘After we had beaten Kingsport, I remember (pitching coach) Jimmy (Walker) saying, ‘We’re in the hardware, aren’t we’? I said ‘yeah, but we want the big hardware.’

‘We headed back to play in the finals, and nobody but the kids on that bus and those three coaches thought we’d win the state championship; not the fans, not the principals ‘ nobody.’

But by the time the final out was recorded, the Pioneers had captured wins by final scores of 5-4 and 4-2, respectively, Trevor Wilson had set a record for TSSAA pitching wins which stands to this day, and high school principals Edd Cantrell and George Bolding were destined to lose their hair, having wagered their locks against a state title following the Pioneers’ region tourney win.

Brown recalled that battling their way back to avenge their earlier loss to Germantown was a testament to the determination and work ethic of his blue-collar Pioneer club.

‘We didn’t have any golden boys,’ he said. ‘We had good athletes; people like ‘Opie’ (Morris), like Trevor Wilson and Robbie France, who wanted it in their hearts.

‘They were competitors, and they were friends. They were close-knit, and fed off each other. When they set their minds to it, they knew nobody could beat them.’

By the season’s end, not many teams had left the field victorious after matchups with the Pioneers. But Brown noted that several opponents came close.

‘The thing I think really shows the determination of those kids was that we played in 11 one-run games out of our 28-6 record ‘ and we won nine of them,’ he said. ‘That tells you that they had the ability to turn the heat up when they wanted to.

‘We didn’t go through just wiping people out. Yes, we won some games by the 10-run rule, but we were in so many close games it was just unreal.

‘Even in the state tournament, in the final two games, things were close. Germantown had the bases loaded five times with less than two outs in those championship games, and they never scored a run out of any of them. Of course, four of those five times the ball was hit to George Oleksik, and who else would you want them to hit it to.’

In addition to the solid core of players, Brown noted it was a coaching staff that could ‘cover all the bases’ that proved key to the 1992 club’s success.

‘In 1979, when I was head baseball coach at Smyrna, I had a great pitching staff,’ he said. ‘But if I’d had Jimmy Walker with me, we probably would’ve won a state championship there. I could do the hitting and fielding, but I knew if I ever went anywhere else I’d have to have an outstanding pitching coach.

‘Jimmy became available in 1987, three years after I got to Warren County, and was a tremendous pitching coach. Then in 1992 Bobby Cox became available, and came on to work with our catchers and hitters. That was the final piece of the puzzle, and I was very fortunate to have two outstanding coaches like they were.’

With the state championship trophy in hand, Brown, his staff and the Pioneers received a hero’s welcome upon their return to McMinnville.

‘When we got back to the Warren County line, it was unbelievable,’ he said. ‘I never knew there were so many fire trucks and police cars in this county. And the closer we got to the school, the more people joined in on our ‘parade.’ They were out on the sides of the roads, and pulling in off every side street, cheering us as we came home. It was quite an experience.’

Even 15 years later, the entire experience of that championship season ‘ and the team that brought the title home to McMinnville ‘ have remained unforgettable.

Odds are, they’ll continue to be so for years to come.