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Time to say goodbye
Photo
Poland softball coach Reid Lamport, right, talks with his players during the 2011 Division II regional softball final at Akron Firestone Park. After nearly five decades of coaching, Lamport will be hanging up his cleats and retiring.
After nearly five decades on the sidelines, Poland’s Reid Lamport ready for next step: retirement
By: Greg Gulas
Poland
For nearly five decades, Reid Lamport graced the football, baseball, softball and tennis sidelines relishing the opportunity to work with young athletes.
For Lamport, it was always about the kids, a group that appreciated his respect and passion for the game as much as how he taught them about life and why an education is paramount if they expected to succeed.
What his players over the years didn’t know, however, was that they, too, had a profound effect on their newly retired head coach.
Over the past 23 years the Newton Falls native posted a 530-115 overall mark, leading the Poland softball team to 17 regional appearances, four final four state appearances, a state title and two runner-up finishes.
He said he learned as much from his players as they did from him.
“The opportunity to work with our young athletes while assisting in their physical, emotional and social development was the biggest reward for me. I learned over the years not to be single-minded and to always have their best interest in mind,” Lamport said.
Working as a developmentally handicapped/learning disabilities teacher for nearly 40 years, his first job was at Montpelier High in 1974-75 where he began his teaching and coaching careers as the Locomotives’ head baseball and assistant football coach.
Stops at Pymatuning Valley, Mathews, Warren Western Reserve, Largo (Fla.) and Jefferson Area high schools molded his coaching style and led him to Poland, where he has been a fixture since the 1985-86 academic year.
He served as the Bulldogs’ head football coach from 1986-92, but enjoyed his greatest success while building the school’s softball team into one of the top in the state.
“For the vast majority of my seasons I was blessed with superior talent and not every coach can make that claim. It starts in the circle and the real plus was the fact that we never failed to have a first-team, all-league pitcher,” Lamport said.
“When you are strong in the classroom you are strong on the field and last season 15 players on our roster posted a 3.5 or better accumulative grade point average. It’s a mindset, an attitude with our girls coming in each year where they expect to play in the regionals with a chance to ultimately play for a state title,” he added.
“It’s much easier to motivate players when those are the expectations,” Lamport said.
Drawing from his many teachers and mentors over the years to mold his teaching personality and coaching style, he credits his former football coach at Newton Falls, Andy Pike, with advice that he has taken with him every stop along the way.
“I learned from Coach [Andy] Pike that in order to be successful at this level then you had better be alligator skinned and take everything with a grain of salt. My mother hated sitting in the stands when I played and my wife, Michele, who has been my biggest support system over the years, hated sitting there when I coached,” Lamport noted.
“I became a better coach when I became a parent because I then understood why a parent took every decision personally. Players understand decisions you make regarding playing time while parents feel for their children,” he added.
“Becoming a parent helped me to become a better decision-maker,” he said.
Coaching his three children was an experience Lamport will never forget.
“I coached my son, Reid, when he played football in the seventh, eighth and ninth grades and then daughters Katie and Jessie during their four varsity years and it was an experience that I will always remember,” he said.
He helped nearly 20 of his former players obtain Division I scholarships. His pitcher the last four seasons, Erin Gabriel, was the first Ohioan invited to try out for the USA Junior National team and was the only high school player on that team last year.
“I was also told by Lisa Fernandez that Erin [Gabriel] was the first ever player from the state of Ohio to be offered a softball scholarship to UCLA. That says a lot,” Lamport said.
Having coached both boys and girls, Lamport said there is a different mindset between the two genders in their approach to the game.
“Female athletes need to be encouraged more because they do not realize how good they can be, especially with those in the upper echelon of their respective sports,” he said. “Males, on the other hand, need to be taken back sometime and reminded that they aren’t as good as they think they are.
“There’s an emotional difference as well. The girls take everything personally and tend to hold on to things longer while the boys feel like you are just trying to motivate them.”
Like in life, there have been highlights and lowlights for Lamport with the highs by far and away outnumbering any low.
His one regret however, is that it has gone by too fast.
“It seems like it’s been just a dozen years or so since I started at Montpelier High School,” he said. “It took me a while, but I finally realized to cherish every game, do the best job that you can and appreciate every out and every inning along the way.
“I probably didn’t do that early on, especially when I was coaching football, but you try to savor everything in the end because there is no more once you are done,” Lamport added.
He credits his longtime assistant coach, Al Cozart, who has been with him the past 21 seasons, as the one assistant instrumental in helping to build the Bulldogs’ softball program.
Lamport (along with associate pastor Mark Brungard, the Bulldogs’ football coach), has served as pastor of Church of the Rock for the past 12 years and admits he won’t stray too far from the game.
He’ll just become another fan in the stands rooting for his Bulldogs to make a return trip to the state tournament.