Baseball coach Steve Johnson passes
300-win mark at Blake
By Nick Clark
Sun Newspapers
(Created: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 10:46 PM CDT)
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Blake head baseball coach Steve Johnson made some history this season, winning his 300th career game in a 2-1 win over St. Agnes May 14.
"For me, it was a nice milestone," Johnson said. "It certainly places me among some very distinguished coaching company, but in the end I am more concerned about what Blake Baseball is about, than what it has done in the win/loss column."
In the 27 years that Johnson had managed the Bears, that win column has got a workout, despite the coach's humble demeanor.
He ended the season with five more wins, pushing his career total to 305. According to the Minnesota State High School Baseball Coaches Association web site, that number places Johnson firmly in the top-40 for most wins ever in the state of Minnesota.
And it is more wins than legendary coaches Dick Mingo (Bloomington Jefferson), Bruce Woitas (Sleepy Eye Saint Mary's), Denny Lofbloom (White Bear Lake), Neal Jeppson (Burnsville) and John Wilkens (St. Michael-Albertville).
Johnson said he'd be back for year No. 29 next year. As Johnson, the Pete Parks Award for Coach of the Year at the Blake School honoree and former MSHSBCA All-Star game coach and instructor for Minnesota Twins Youth Camps, looked back at his personal accomplishments in coaching, it quickly became evident that for all these years his focus has been on his players and not perusing personal goals.
"I have always tried to make each player's experience as positive as possible," he said. "I have tried to not only develop baseball skills, but life skills as well. My concern has always been for them to achieve a maximum degree of personal success within the concept of striving for something as a cohesive group."
Johnson has always required that, regardless of the quality of play, Blake's teams and individuals display an honor and respect for themselves, each other and the game.
"Each year we all step out there, each with our own reasons, to create a moment in time in all of our lives," he said. "We deal with the joys, the frustrations and all the things beyond our control; and we do it together."
"In the end we are not the same as we started, we have become something more, we have become a part of each other," Johnson continued. "If all I have done is win, lose and teach a few physical skills, then it has been a waste of time. But I don't think that happened."
Johnson was hired as a history teacher and administrator at Blake, but most that have played for him, and even those who have coached with him, would label him a philosopher.
"I coached with Steve for 16 years," said assistant baseball coach Rick Johns. "And one of his favorite pastimes on bus trips or in those few quiet, secluded moments in the dugouts was to speak of the symbolic nature of baseball. Steve loves to say that the game is a metaphor for life, a vehicle for helping young men figure out what it means to cope with life's bounces, catch what it has to offer, and even throw a little back. Steve has always felt that baseball, like no other game, helps young men build character, confidence, discipline and thought, thus helping them to become better men."
Those philosophies, as well as the players that have played for the coach, have left their mark on Johnson.
"Coaching several hundred young men of unique character has taught me more than I ever taught them," he said. "The experiences we shared have enriched my life beyond measure."
Reprinted with permission Sun Newspapers
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