BY STEVE KRAH
Jerry Chaney has been the head baseball coach at Mitchell (Ind.) Senior High School for nine seasons.
He has general goals for the Lawrence County-based Bluejackets — on and off the field.
“My main focus is to turn boys into men that our school and community can be proud of,” says Chaney, who teaches Business, coaches junior varsity girls basketball and is the Students Against Drunk Driving director at MHS. “I want to teach them the fundamentals of baseball and what it takes to become a successful program.”
In 2019, there were 22 playing baseball for MHS. Feeding the Bluejackets at the high school level is a junior high program with about 16 players.
While there are no current players yet committed to play college baseball, Mitchell graduate Tanner Simpson is a left-handed pitcher at Marian University in Indianapolis.
Mitchell calls Gary Seitzinger Field home. The facility was a sectional host site a year ago.
“Our field is well taken care of, and our staff continually works on it,” says Chaney. “We are looking into a turf home plate area, an outside hitting facility and improving areas in front of dugouts.”
Seitzinger and Logan Gore are Chaney assistants.
Chaney is a 1985 Bedford (Ind.) North Lawrence High School graduate. He played for Mike Short while with the Stars and tries to apply lessons he learned with his players.
“Mike was a gentleman off and on the field,” says Chaney. “He was very organized and cared about us.”
After high school, Chaney played catcher at Oakland City (Ind.) University, where he received his B.A. degree in education. He holds a masters of education from Indiana Wesleyan University.
Chaney was a varsity baseball assistant at BNL for 13 seasons, serving primarily as the hitting coach. He has also been head baseball coach at Eastern Greene High School in Bloomfield, Ind.
Mitchell (enrollment around 475) is a member of the Patoka Lake Athletic Conference (with Crawford County, Orleans, Paoli, Perry Central, Springs Valley and West Washington) and plays home and away games against each league team.
Last season’s non-conference opponents for Mitchell have included Bloomfield, Brownstown Central, Corydon Central, Eastern Greene, Linton-Stockton, Loogootee, Salem, Scottsburg and Shoals.
The Bluejackets are part of an IHSAA Class 2A sectional grouping with Eastern Greene, Linton-Stockton, North Knox, Paoli and South Knox. Mitchell has won 10 sectional crowns — the last in 2006.
Jerry and Sonya Chaney have been married for 13 years and have five children.
Jerry Chaney has been head baseball coach at Mitchell (Ind.) Senior High School for nine seasons.
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