Manatee Passes on Scouting, Muscles its Way to Baseball Region Finals

Longtime UCLA basketball head coach John Wooden, who won 10 NCAA championships in a 12-year span — including seven in a row — once said he never scouted an opponent.

His thinking was that if his team simply focused on itself, the wins would come.

Likewise, baseball coach Dwayne Strong showed Wooden-esque wizardry in not scouting Tampa King in last week's Class 5A-Region 3 quarterfinal.

Nor did Strong scout Tampa Gathier in the semifinal last Saturday.

Manatee won both by a 10-run mercy rule.

So why would Strong scout Largo Pinellas Park for Friday's 7 p.m. regional final at Pinellas County Park in St. Petersburg?

Like a Gulf tide switching from incoming to outgoing, so is Manatee baseball flipping from mediocrity to success. Just as Hurricanes students and alumni were on the verge of suffering offseason withdrawals during a break from its prestigious football program, the baseball team has generated buzz.

How long has it been since the Hurricanes were breezing through playoffs by swatting a ball over a fence instead of crossing one across a goal line?

Manatee last won a baseball state championship in 1963.

Before that? Try 1942, '32, '31 and '25.

Did someone at Manatee High finally shout, "Play ball?"

“I never felt like there was competition from the football team,” Strong said. “Our athletic director (Joe Kinnan) is obviously a great football coach and we don't fight over players. All I've done is put my nose down and put my working boots on and went to work building programs by trying to make the kids want to play.”

Strong said high school athletes don't always buy into hard work. Until the wins stack up like Phil Ivey poker chips, of course.

Manatee has reached the regional final — with three of its four playoff wins coming via the 10-run rule — by focusing on fundamentals of hitting, fielding and catching, instead of trick plays or run-downs.

“I came to the conclusion you don't lose games with rundowns or bunt coverage,” Strong said. “You lose it by not fielding, catching and hitting the majority of the time.”

Strong is showing that, yes, old-school hard work can produce wins. And he's also molding men.

“These lessons are way bigger than baseball,” Strong said. “You're not going to wake up and make $50,000 a year. One guy might make $20,000. But are you going to quit? No. Go back to work and do what you do. Someday you might make $50,000.”

But these are teenagers in a “give me now” country, he said.

“In today's society, everything has to be sexy,” Strong said. “Everyone wants to go to Miami or Florida or Florida State.”

Nor can everyone can go to the regional final.

But with ace pitcher Correlle Prime and a slew of lethal hitters throughout the lineup, Manatee has used a carpenter-like work ethic to grind to within three wins of a state title.

And Strong, without scouting reports, knows only that he'll be playing some team in St. Petersburg by the name of Pinellas Park that has been good enough to meet them there.