COLUMN: Flowers For The Ol' Ball Coach

*This is an opinion column*

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Whatever you do, never make the first or last out at third base.

Click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter and breaking news alerts.

If this unwritten piece of baseball gospel was among the Ten Commandments, it'd probably fall somewhere between "Honor thy mother and father" and "Thou shalt not steal."

It should also come as little surprise to those who know me that on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in Childersburg, Alabama in the spring of 2007, I swiped third base on a ball that got away from the catcher.

It was the quarterfinals of the 4A playoffs.

I was safe by little more than a fingernail — but safe nonetheless. I always remind folks of that fact when I tell this humorous anecdote.

When I snagged that base, though, there were two outs in the top half of the seventh inning in what would be my final game in that baby blue Rams uniform.

And I'll never forget those piercing, moonlike eyes staring down at me over that white mustache.

Those peepers could burn a hole right through you if you stepped in it bad enough.

Longtime Northside High baseball coach Larry Mims, already a legend at this point two decades ago, is still a true titan of the sport, not just in our tiny community but for the entire state.

Hell, my Dad and uncle both played for him, so did my little brother and first cousin. I've described the Northside baseball culture during the Larry Mims Era to many outsiders as similar to that of the Texas high school football program depicted in the book and movie "Friday Night Lights" — a collective obsession over a child's game that weighed year round on the minds of us players, our families and the community.

And it's that culture Coach Mims fostered over 37 years that persists to this day, years after the field so many of us played on was renamed in his honor.

The House that Larry Mims Built

Even as I write this, I can't help but swell with pride looking at my 2007 Class 4A Area 8 Area Championship plaque that sits on my writing desk.

It's something that's worth as much to me as the numerous professional awards I've collected over the years.

"2 GAMES, 7th INNING, 2 OUTS, SCORED 7 RUNS TO WIN"

I wasn't much of an athlete by any measurable metric but can at least count myself among the chosen few to have played for and learned the game from Larry Mims.

Rewind to that formative moment in 2007: I stood up and dusted myself off on third base.

Coach Mims promptly called time out and, with my grandparents sitting behind the chainlink backstop just a few feet away, proceeded to light into me for committing a cardinal sin that could've ended our season right there.

"What were you thinking?" Coach Mims asked me in a soft but fierce tone I'll remember to this day and before I chirped back in a final act of defiance.

"You told me not to think, remember?"

Leave it to yours truly to have a smart-ass response in such an important moment. And if Coach Mims is being honest, he'll surely attest that I was far from the kind of ballplayer every coach dreams of having on their team.

"He is a hard-nosed son-of-a-gun but he was always fair coaching y'all," longtime NHS baseball assistant David Green reminded me Monday. "Getting to coach with him, especially that state championship team [in 2001], were some of the best memories of my life."

"It's how he was brought up by his parents because his brothers are the same way, they're very disciplinarian-minded and they want things done the right way," Shelton State baseball coaching legend Bobby Sprowl added when I asked him about that kind of coaching style. "That's the way you do things. If you do it right the first time, you don't ever have to go back. That's who he is."

When that game in Childersburg, and my short-lived athletic career ended that day, I wasn't overly sentimental as I packed up my glove and spikes for the last time, before embarking on the next chapters of my life.

It feels like I've lived three or four different lifetimes since that afternoon, all the while telling myself I was leaving Tuscaloosa County for good and would never return.

Life's a funny thing, though, and on Monday I found myself reminiscing with more old friends than I could count as we showed up outside of DCH Regional Medical Center to offer well-wishes to Coach Mims as he recovers from complications following heart surgery.

Although I've been back in Tuscaloosa for almost six years and even interviewed my former baseball coach for a couple of Northside-related stories, the gathering was a sweet kind of homecoming as I watched a long line of familiar faces walk up, one by one, to show love to the old ball coach after his family wheeled him out in a hospital bed.

Coach Mims was met with applause and thoughtful signs from those who know him best and many began to cry when he mustered the strength to wave to those gathered.

The line to see him was long and I didn't feel worthy to take even a little of his precious energy, so I just watched and admired the love he was able to bring out of the community he grew up in and served for so long.

This also brought back a deluge of memories and reminded me of how life has a way of coming full circle in these kinds of moments — tremendously rare instances when we can honor somebody while we still have them.

Flowers For The Ol' Ball Coach

Longtime Shelton State baseball coach, Crimson Tide pitching legend and former big leaguer Bobby Sprowl was at the front of the line and leaned in to talk his old Alabama baseball teammate.

"He sort of babysat me at Alabama when he was playing there," Sprowl told me later in the day. "He was older, maybe a junior or senior. He took care of me, so I've known him for that long. I've always respected him because when he tells you he's going to do something, he does it. We need more people like him teaching like that."

Coach Mims was an athletic superstar at Northside High who went on to have a memorable career at the Capstone before dedicating his life to the Tuscaloosa County School System.

But it's his legacy as a coach where you can find his true impact.

Don't believe me?

Ask another bonafide big leaguer: Crimson Tide baseball legend and former Boston Red Sox manager Butch Hobson, who was also an Alabama teammate with Coach Mims and counts him as a longtime friend.

"If Larry got after you, it was probably because he loved you," Hobson told me. "That's the lesson Coach [Paul] Bryant always got across to us playing football. [Mims is] the same way: a great coach, a great man and I wish him the best as he recovers. I've always enjoyed spending any time I could with Larry."

Apart from his big league connections, Coach Mims' influence runs deep when talking to many of the beloved personalities in Northside athletics who committed their entire careers to a small, often overlooked school in Samantha.

"Truly, he's a legend," longtime NHS athletic trainer and DCH Sports Medicine pioneer Sheryl Hendrix told me. "I can't even fathom how many people's lives he's touched. What a great man, a great mentor. I've worked with so many people but I love him like a brother."

Northside coaching mainstay, Central High legend and my former assistant baseball coach Lance Green told me Coach Mims taught him more about coaching and dealing with people than anyone else in his career.

But apart from coaching, he also considers his longtime mentor a loyal friend who he continues to lean on for wisdom.

"Some of my best memories of my life are times spent with him on the baseball field and basketball court," Lance Green said. "He helped me for years and is still one of my biggest supporters now in basketball and the rides to and from the games hearing him rehashing y’all messing up or celebrating wins or just hearing his jokes — he’s nonstop."

While decorated Northside High School head softball coach Tommy Honeycutt occupies the same kind of rarified air in Alabama coaching circles as Coach Mims, I remember him best as my defensive coordinator on several regrettably bad Northside football teams.

As we stood outside of DCH, Coach Honeycutt choked up and fought through tears as he spoke about a man who's made an immeasurable impact on his life and career.

"When I was a young coach, I got to learn who I was because of him and the role model he was," he told me. "He never let me down. There's people that you want to be like and I always wanted to be like that dude. Not just in coaching, but parenting and life. That is my role model."

Since we're getting sentimental, I was overjoyed at this makeshift homecoming when I ran into Allan Brackin — my former head football coach and one-time AP English teacher.

Brackin also fought back tears as he offered up well-wishes to his longtime friend and reflected on a relationship going back to when the Holt native first came to Northside in 1985.

Brackin said he considers Coach Mims a brother and smiled when he thought about the thousands of miles they travelled on old yellow school buses and the pranks they'd pull.

"We spent a lot of hours together, doing mundane things like cutting grass and putting out weed killer but we enjoyed every minute of it together and I wouldn't trade a minute of it," Brackin told me. "He's having a rough time but hopefully he's gonna pull through this time."

Four decades of friendship is a long time, indeed, with Brackin saying they celebrated their children, mourned the passing of parents and helped each other through the day-to-day monotony of the coaching life.

"We got to coach ball and coach kids, and we loved every minute of it," he said. "He's one of the best there ever was. One of the greatest friends I ever had. I don't wanna lose him, can't lose him. It is one of those things you can't put into words. The emotion is too strong but he means the world to me."

As I walked back to the DCH parking deck, I was fortunate enough to run into an old friend and arguably the best outfielder I've ever seen play the game.

Coy Arrowood was a center fielder you could set your watch by who was a standout on our teams with Mims and then for Sprowl at Shelton State before becoming the only one of us from those years to play Division One baseball (at UAB).

"Coach Mims was a big part of my baseball career," Arrowood told me. "It sounds like he’s been going through a lot recently, and seeing how many people showed up to support him today really says everything. He’s clearly made a lasting impact on so many people in our community."

Matt Wolfenbarger is one of my lifelong best friends and we chatted on the phone after I left DCH. Had it not been for him reminding and nudging me earlier in the morning, this story likely wouldn't have been written.

Wolfenbarger, like myself, was a second-generation Northside baseball player. Our dads even played together.

He was our ace pitcher during those years, went on to play in a JUCO World Series for Sprowl at Shelton State and is someone I was so excited to write about during our times in Mississippi when I was a newspaper editor and he was a college baseball head coach.

"Putting into words what Coach Mims means to me is no easy task — honestly, I could write a book," he told me in one of the rare instances where I broke journalistic ethics to quote a close personal friend. "Playing for him and being coached by him didn’t just prepare me to succeed on the field, but more importantly, to be a better man, husband, father, son and friend. The competitive mindset he instilled in me, both in baseball and in life, is something I still carry with me every day. I value his opinion so much that I still call him to talk through personal and career decisions. Because of the man he is and the impact he’s had on my life, he’s the only coach I’d ever take the field for again."

On my drive home from the hospital, especially after talking to my old friends, my heart was as full as its been in a long time — bursting with so many memories made possible by that imposing, mustachioed man who preached to me and anybody else within earshot that you never make the first or last out at third base.

Get well soon, Coach Mims.

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and opinion columnist. He is also the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. The views expressed in this column are his own and in no way a reflection of our parent company or sponsors. Contact him at ryan.phillips@patch.com