After several months of soul-searching Derrik Boland was sure it was time for him to leave the collegiate coaching ranks and return to a high school dugout, building and running his own program. He just was not sure where, until he visited Kosciusko.
“It’s a family and community type program,” said the 34-year-old Boland, who was approved as Kosciusko High School head baseball coach at the Monday night meeting of the school board. “That type of program has always attracted me. Everywhere I’ve been, high school and college, that’s the atmosphere I’ve been in. It’s a baseball school and cares about baseball.”
Boland takes the reins of the Kosy baseball program from longtime coach Jonathan Jones, who recently accepted the head baseball coaching job at Neshoba Central, his alma mater.
“Coach Jones did a great job here and built a good program,” Boland said.”I think Kosciusko is a place I can put some roots down and stay as long as they will have me. I want it to be for a long time. I would like to establish a program and build something special. My goal is to leave the program better than I found it.”
Boland played high school baseball at Nettleton and was a catcher/designated hitter for NCAA Division III Millsaps College for four seasons.
He has had a pair of successful stints as a high school head baseball coach, first at St. Aloysius in Vicksburg where his team regularly made the playoffs and then at Mountain Shades near Birmingham, where his teams continued to have success.
Most recently Boland served as the pitching coach/recruiting coordinator at Huntington College in Montgomery, Ala. for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. While Boland enjoyed his time at Huntington and the relationships he made, something was missing.
“I kind of did some soul searching over the past couple of months and just felt like the high school level is where God has called me to work. I think I can have more of an impact on those guys.”
While Boland says improvement on the baseball field is certainly important, he sees coaching baseball as something much deeper than teaching young men fundamentals and how to properly go about playing the game.
“You can accomplish a lot fo things that aren’t just baseball related,” Boland said. “You can have those relationships with kids that goes far beyond baseball. I was blessed to play for two high school coaches (Brian Sutton and Corey Welch) that were like fathers to me. I still have a relationship with them and I’m 16 years out (of high school).
“Jim Page (Boland’s college coach at Millsaps) is like my father on and off the field. I want to pass that torch. To me, that’s giving back to the game.”
While at Millsaps he met his future wife, Molly, who was a softball player at Millsaps. In fact it was Molly’s pursuit of medical school that had them move to Birmingham in the first place. After she passed away in 2016 he made a move and joined the staff at Huntington.
Now he’s ready to get back to where he knows he Is designed to be, molding young men as a high school baseball coach.
