By: Garrett Mitchell, Staff Writer
After seven seasons as the head baseball coach at Spartanburg High School, Wesley Brown was ready for a new opportunity.
He did not have to look far to find one.
Brown, whose successful career has seen him find success with a trio of once-struggling programs, was named the new head baseball coach for Woodruff High School in May, and it was a position he had his eye on for a while.
“(Getting to Woodruff) has been exciting,” said Brown. “It’s something I’ve had my eye on for a couple of years. (The head coaching position) opened up and the opportunity was there to try and get it, so I’m looking forward to taking Woodruff to the next level. I know there is a rich tradition athletically at Woodruff and I’ve been on the other side of it back when I was a player so I know what is there and what people expect. The support of the community is going to be very valuable for me personally.”
Brown said there was an element of sadness in leaving Spartanburg after leading the Vikings for the past seven seasons. Spartanburg baseball was in the midst of a dry spell when Brown took over the program but turned around under his leadership despite competing in conferences with perennial powers Dorman and Byrnes.
“It’s always sad leaving one program because I have had some unbelievable kids at Spartanburg who I love dearly,” he said. “You hate to leave those guys but also things happen for a reason and I felt like signs around me were pointing for me to take the next step in my career and take a different position. I think it’s going to work out for everybody involved.”
A native of Jackson, SC, and graduate of Silver Bluff High School, Brown’s career has spanned more than 17 years and in that time his track record of success has been well noted.
Brown coached at South Aiken High School in an assistant capacity but was a driving force behind that program’s turnaround and a trip to the Class 4A state championship series during his tenure.
After leaving South Aiken, he took over the program at Fox Creek High School, a young program at the time, and turned the Predators into a powerhouse program over his five seasons at the school.
Now, Brown takes over a Woodruff program that has had just a handful of winning seasons since 2003 and has advanced to the upper-state bracket of the playoffs only once in that time frame. The Wolverines have won just seven games in the past two combined seasons, but with a young nucleus and talented sub-varsity and youth teams primed to funnel in talent, Coach Brown sees an opportunity to win big at Woodruff in the coming years.
“It’s a situation for me, if you look back on my career, everywhere I’ve ever been in was a program that was trying to build,” Brown added. “My track record has been very successful in that. I think we had 26 or 27 kids sign (college scholarships) at Spartanburg in seven years and that is something that I pride myself on. I believe that basis is there for Woodruff and there is a lot of talent coming up. It’s my job to take what’s there and kind of give them a different thought process and direction for where they are trying to go, and where we are trying to go as a program.”
He continued, “It may take some adjustments, but we have to do something different there to make headway for the future.”
In addition to coaching baseball, Wesley Brown also served as one of Spartanburg High School’s strength and conditioning coaches and he will continue that work in an assistant capacity at Woodruff.
Brown has already dived headlong into building the Wolverines’ program from the ground up. Among the first things he did after being hired to lead the Wolverines was immerse himself in the community’s youth programs and WYRA league. That is something that as a coach Brown is passionate about; teaching the game to his future players from a young age.
“It’s a big deal to me,” Brown said. “I have said I wanted to be somewhere that felt like home. Well, that’s what I’m used to, having a smaller town setting where I knew the players, who they were, who their parents were, their background, and where they’re coming from. That helps me to analyze them and know how to coach each kid because each kid is a little different. That to me is a plus and a bonus to have the opportunity to interact with the little leagues and that is something I will attack really hard as the future goes.”
Author: Tracy Sanders
