Posted on 08/01/2016
Francis Howell High
School’s Viking baseball team is still reveling over their fourth state
championship in the program’s history, but the awards keep coming in.
Specifically, head coach Tony Perkins, who’s been the team’s manager for more
than twenty years, has been receiving recognition from not just area coaches,
but those from around the entire nation. Last week, he was named the American
Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) National Coaches of the Year, winning
the High School Division I Coach of the Year for Region 5 (MO).
Winning this award says a lot about Perkins and his dedication to Howell
baseball, but the longtime coach thinks it says more about the kids he is
privileged to coach. “It is a tribute to the many, many years of baseball at
Francis Howell,” Perkins said. “Players make the program and we have been
blessed with so many good ones.”
It takes a good coach and players to make a great program, but without the
support of the Howell community, Perkins feels the program wouldn’t have had so
much success over the years, including four state championships since 2003, and
three in the last six years. “The Francis Howell community supports our program
fantastically,” Perkins said. “From players, parents, coaches, teachers,
Activities Director Sean Erwin and his assistant, Gina Kerns, and the rest of
the administration, I could not be luckier to be the head coach at such a
place.”
Well, it could be better, such as getting to coach your sons through their high
school baseball years, as Perkins did. Perkins and his wife Tracy have been
able to see them grow as students and athletes, and the boys got to see dad
grow as a coach. Our four boys each earned two championship rings and three of
them earned a second place as well. That is a selfish comment on my part,
but no father could ask for anything more than what I have been lucky enough to
receive from our sons.”
Coaching your sons is a gratifying aspect to the job, as Perkins suggested. But
the moment you put on that Viking uniform is the moment you become a member of
the Perkins family. “In reality,” Perkins said, “each and every player that
comes through our program becomes one of my sons, and I have built lifelong
relationships with so many Francis Howell Baseball players.”
And it’s yet another segment of the Francis Howell School District of which we
are so proud.