South Georgia - In The Game High School Sports Magazine

“Being a head coach involves a lot more work behind the scenes. There’s more paperwork and fundraising. The majority of the work takes place before the season begins. The games – they’re the easy part,” says Fitzgerald High School head baseball coach Jason McDonald. A long-time Fitzgerald assistant, Coach McDonald is in his first year as head coach. He’s been patiently waiting, serving as an assistant for 10 years under two different head coaches. Now it’s his turn, and he knows exactly what he wants to do with the Purple Hurricanes.

Coach McDonald graduated from Fitzgerald High in 1991. He was an outfielder on the baseball team but didn’t play college ball. “I was average at best,” he laughs. He enrolled at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, where he dreamed of a career in the medical field. Then Jason started coaching his younger twin brothers. After two years at ABAC, he decided he wanted to coach. From ABAC, Coach McDonald attended Valdosta State University, where he graduated with a degree in health and physical education in 1997. His first job out of high school was coaching the junior varsity squad at Appling County High. “I coached for free. They didn’t even give me a supplement. I did it just to get my foot in the door,” he says. After one year in Baxley, he returned to Fitzgerald as an assistant baseball coach and PE teacher for grades K-2 at Ben Hill Primary School. Coach McDonald worked under Sammy Reynolds and Tripp Stripling before finally getting his chance to be the boss.

Having been in the system for a decade, Coach McDonald knows the program very well. He knows Fitzgerald’s strengths and weaknesses and knows all about the Purple Hurricane’s opponents. He also knows where he wants to take the program and what will be required to get it there. For nine of the last 10 years, Fitzgerald has made the playoffs but has yet to advance past the second round. Last season, they were bounced in the first round. “My goal for us is to compete for a region championship every year. If you can win the region, you set yourself up for a deep run in the playoffs. We’ve been stuck at the second round for a long time. If you can make the quarterfinals, anything can happen,” he says. Fitzgerald has been competitive in the region in recent years. Last season, the ‘Canes finished second behind Cook. “Everybody is chasing Cook right now,” says McDonald. “They’re loaded.”

Making a deep run at the playoffs depends on solid pitching. Fitzgerald has been thin on pitching over the years. One of Coach McDonald’s priorities is to develop good, young pitchers at an early age. “We’ve been a one-pitcher team lately, but this season we have four or five guys who can handle their share of the load. That should make us better,” says  Coach  McDonald.  The

high school coaching staff has been involved with the middle school team in order to help those players transition to the high school level. Coach McDonald’s varsity pitching coach also works with the middle school players. That’s part of his overall plan to develop better pitchers at a younger age. Rising ninth-graders also play with the high school kids in Fitzgerald’s summer program. The goal is to get the older kids more reps against better competition so when they reach high school, they will have some experience playing in those kinds of situations.

This year, the ‘Canes started off a little sluggishly; they were 1-2 after their first three games. After that first week, Fitzgerald found a stride and won three in a row. At the time of this interview, they were 4-2 with one region win under their belt. “Cook is always the team to beat in our region, but we should get one of the other playoff spots. Right now, we’re hitting and pitching very well,” says Coach McDonald.

Times are different now compared to the way things were when Coach McDonald was growing up. During baseball season, nothing else mattered. Nothing distracted him and his teammates during the season – they were totally focused on baseball. That’s not the case anymore. “Players today have so much more to do. It can be hard to get the kids focused on a team concept because there is so much more going on,” he says. The 2010 team, however, has bought into Coach McDonald’s system and is responding well to what the coaching staff would like to accomplish.

Part of the reason for the team’s early success has been communication. Coach McDonald doesn’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to coaching. Kids respond to coaching differently these days. In order to successfully reach players, coaches must learn to deal with the individual personalities in unique ways. “When I was growing up, a lot of coaches only had one way of doing things. It was their way or no way at all. We don’t cater to our players, but we know that we have to relate to each player differently. Our assistants are really good at doing that,” he says.

Players need a positive role model in their lives, and sports can be much more than just a way to kill a few hours a week doing something fun. A number of life lessons can be taught through the avenues that sports open up. Coach McDonald and his staff realize this and know they have a responsibility to teach their players about more than just playing baseball. “Sports build character, responsibility, honesty and integrity. We want to put our players in a position to be successful, both in life and on the field,” he says.

Focusing on fundamentals is also central to Coach McDonald’s philosophy. The distractions baseball players face today may have changed, but the way the game is played has remained constant. “Kids need to study the game and understand baseball. A lot of our kids play two or three sports, so they’re basically full-time athletes. They don’t have time to specialize in one sport or another. Because of that, they don’t always know the nuances of the game. We spend a lot of time working on that,” he says.

In addition to coaching baseball, Coach McDonald works with the middle school football team. He is also working on his doctorate in teacher leadership. He’s about a year away from obtaining his degree; all he lacks is finishing his dissertation. Between coaching football in the fall, baseball in the spring and working on his dissertation, he doesn’t have time to do much else. But he still manages to find time to hunt, fish, and spend time with his wife, Lori, and their twin nine-year-old girls, Kaylee and Lyndsee. The girls are competitive gymnasts, and Jason and Lori spend a number of weekends traveling the Southeast with them. “I love the outdoors and I love my family time,” says Coach McDonald. •