John Raffel
Sports Scene
Rollie Carman has worn a few different high school baseball caps in his career. But now he’s coaching at St. Louis, and his goal is to turn the Sharks into contenders again.
As of mid-May, St. Louis’ record was 5-8.
“It’s going all right,” Carman said. ”We’re doing OK.”
The new St. Louis coach was head coach at Ithaca the previous eight seasons. Prior to that, he was at Carson City-Crystal four seasons, St. Louis one year, Alma three seasons, Montabella three years, plus Ithaca for two.
“I’ve been all over the country,” Carman smiled. “Never been able to settle down.”
He’s been handling the coaching duties wherever and whenever he’s been able to fit into a particular program, Carman noted.
“My goal is to build this program back to where it was not too long ago,” Carman said of St. Louis. “They were really good. There’s a lot of support from the community, and there’s a lot of people working hard to make sure the baseball is good. That’s kind of why I went there.”
Carman has been impressed with the support he’s getting from parents. “You get parents on your side, and that’s nine-tenths of the battle,” he said.
St. Louis will continue to have an active summer program with Carman on board. “That’s the way it is,” he said. “If you’re going to have a program, you have to have kids playing baseball from January until September, and then they can take the rest of the time off. But they have to be playing January to September. That’s pretty much how you generate good ballplayers. You can’t just go from March to June.”
St. Louis has 18-and-under and 16-and-under baseball programs that were started last season.
“You look at what they’re offering St. Louis kids for baseball, and it was pretty easy to decide to go there,” Carman said. “We’ll play Shepherd, we’ll play Chip Hills, we’ll play Beal City, we’ll play Harrison, Gladwin, teams over that way. We play Mount Pleasant teams, too.”
When high school season ends, Carman and his players will get right into the summer campaign.
At St. Louis, “we’re basically teaching kids from the ground up,” he said. “It’s certainly going to be a process this year. You have a new coach. My program is pretty extensive and the kids have a lot of learning to do.”
Between varsity and junior varsity, Carman has 26 total kids on the teams this spring.
“It’s really hard to go with more than that,” Carman said. “You can’t have 15 kids on your team because the ones that aren’t playing won’t play. It makes it hard on coaches. If you don’t play them, they quit. Our numbers are where they need to be. We just have to get the right group of kids there.”
St. Louis plays in the TVC West. Building the program into a conference contender is a high priority for Carman. “Your whole season is based on league play,” he said.
A native of the area, he lives in Sumner, between Carson City and Ithaca, and is a teacher at the St. Louis correctional facility.
The poor spring weather seems to emphasize Carman’s point of having players take advantage of the warm summer months to play baseball.
“I want kids that are going to play baseball when baseball is available and not just in the spring,” Carman said. “The youth program in St. Louis is really strong. We can keep kids interested in baseball. It’s just a matter of time.”