The Avery County Board of Education approved the hiring of Samuel Phillips as the new varsity head baseball coach at Avery High School in a meeting held last week. Phillips replaces Benny Wellborn, who led the Vikings to multiple state playoff berths during his tenure as coach with the club and stepped down last summer for family reasons. Phillips served as an assistant under Wellborn and worked with the junior varsity team as head coach last season.
“As a local kid growing up in Avery County, I feel like my feet definitely got wet in the program. Working alongside Benny was very helpful, and he has been there for me since I got the job,” Phillips said in an interview last week. “I am excited, I’m blessed and very thankful for the opportunity to have this job.”
“We’re delighted to have Samuel as our new baseball coach. I think he is a fine young man and he has always been a student of the game. Not only is he a student of the game, but he loves the game. He comes from a baseball-crazed family and he played for one of the best college coaches around in Ashley Lawson. With his enthusiasm for the game, I believe he will continue the progress in the baseball program that has been made the past several years,” Avery High School Director of Athletics David Wright said regarding the hiring of the new coach. “He’s identified some problem areas here in Avery County with the baseball program, such as the weakness between Little League and high school and affording opportunities for our kids to play baseball during that time, as well as the need for our kids to play baseball during the summer and outside baseball season. He has a good baseball mind and he sees what we need to do to improve and get better.”
Coach Phillips is looking forward to putting his own stamp on the program and plans to get to work quickly building Avery into a perennial 1A baseball contender.
“I see two programs at Avery: the way things are, and the way they could be. We had some great teams in recent seasons and had great success, and I’m thankful to Benny and his work in making the program what it is today,” Phillips shared. “This job has been a lifelong dream of mine. I told my parents when I was younger that I wanted to come back to this area and become a coach. My former college coach Ashley Lawson and I have spoken several times, and he now works as an assistant coach at the University of Tennessee. He encouraged me to “make this job my Tennessee”. Those words hit home with me, and I want to make this position the best it can be.”
Phillips knows that for the Big Red baseball program to be successful, it will take a lot of dedication both in the classroom and on the diamond.
“If I can get our kids to do their best in the classroom, in the community, and on the baseball field, I believe success will follow,” Coach Phillips added. “But there’s no replacement for hard work. We’re going to work hard, no matter what.”
Phillips plans to meet this week with returning and potential players, integrate an off-season weightlifting program, and he also plans to become involve in aspects of baseball indirectly connected to Avery High School.
“I really want to involve myself with Little League Baseball here in Avery County. I want the kids to know my name and understand that I care for them and their baseball future. I want them to know that they are the future of the baseball program at Avery and that they mean as much to me as any other aspect of growing our baseball program locally,” Phillips explained. “The future and building a tradition is vital. I don’t want us to be good one year and then bad for five years. I want to have a program built where every year opponents know that when they have to play Avery they have to lace ‘em up tight and play.”
The coach doesn’t plan on, in his words, “re-inventing the wheel”, but does intend on helping players with aspects of the game which will strengthen the team dynamic in the weeks, months, and years to come, as well as hold high expectations for those who play for him.
“In my two years as a high school coach I’ve learned if you have a high school pitcher who can throw strikes, you can have success. If a pitcher has two pitches that he can throw for strikes, he can be dominant. In college, if you have a pitcher with three pitches that can be thrown for strikes, you can be dominant. You can be really successful at the high school level if you can throw two pitches for strikes,” the coach said.
“In the wintertime we will hit, hit, hit, and we will pitch, pitch, and pitch. I hope we can do some cage work and some tee work, but we will focus a lot on pitching, since I pitched in college and have some wealth of knowledge to pass along to pitchers. It will be tough on our pitchers. They’ll be the first ones at practice and the last to leave, and that’s just the way it is, as they have to do the extra legwork to really be successful.”
Avery baseball fans can expect a head coach who will expend every ounce of energy to make Viking Baseball the best it can possibly be, as well as something the community can be proud of.
“I can’t make any promises the first season that we’ll have some great measure of success,” Coach Phillips said. “But I can promise that I will give 110 percent every time out in every area of the job. That’s how I played the game, and that’s how I will coach.”
