Columbia baseball Coach Mark Pickle worked on the ground crew at the NCAA regional at Hawkins Field last weekend.
“I do some work for Bill Marbet at Southern Athletic Fields and we were the ground crew this past weekend,” Pickle said. “We did the regional back in 2007 also. After the games started, I was a fan and I sat there and watched all the games.”
Pickle was impressed by the talented players from Vanderbilt, Belmont, Troy and Oklahoma State.
“Vanderbilt is probably one of the premier programs in the country at this point,” Pickle said. “(Commodores Coach Tim Corbin) will probably have no telling how many kids drafted over the next two or three days. The thing I was as proud of as anything was Belmont. Doing what they did — not only getting to the regional, but getting to the finals — that was huge for their program.”
Pickle’s job was to take care of the baselines and make sure they were chalked up.
“Baseball coaches in high school — we’re teachers, we’re coaches, we’re grounds maintenance guys, we’re guidance counselors, we’re mechanics,” Pickle said. “I mean, you name it. We’ve probably got 20 different titles by the end of the day because we’ve got to do so much. We don’t have the money to get different people to do it, so I guess a high school coach pretty much has to be a jack of all trades.”
Pickle led Columbia to a runner-up showing in Class AAA this season.
He won’t be back on the ground crew at this weekend’s Super Regional because he will be working as an assistant coach with the Team Tennessee travel team at a tournament in Oklahoma.
