Over the last two seasons Stephen Westbrook’s name has been mentioned just about every time a head baseball coaching position came open. This time the now former West Orange-Stark assistant coach couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
Westbrook has been named the new head baseball coach of the Jasper Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs have a long tradition of winning baseball and now they have the facilities to go along with it with a new all-turf field that opened this season. They won the 3A State Title in 2007.
“I’ve known (Athletic Director/Hd Football Coach) Darrell Barbay a long time and after talking to him I felt it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” he said. “But it was a tough decision because I enjoyed my time at WOS and many of those great kids we had during our state run in ’15 will be seniors next year and it was hard to say goodbye. It was also hard to tell Coach (Cornel) Thompson because he’s been good to me.”
If you’ll miss the kids at WOS maybe you’ll schedule them next year so you can see them? “Ha, yeah maybe,” he smiled. “I haven’t talked to Coach Landry about that but there’s a good chance we’ll get on the schedule.”
Jasper won district last season and reached the fourth round of the playoffs where they lost to Little Cypress-Mauriceville. “We lost a lot of kids that were on that team so we have some work to do. It’ll will be a great opportunity for the younger kids to step up and try to earn a starting position,” Westbrook said.
Westbrook, 43, graduated from Nederland in 1990 and played at Lamar. After several years as an assistant he took over the WOS baseball team from 2001-05 and had some success. He left to go into private business but missed the game and took over at Waskom for two seasons and then four at Scurry Rosser where they made their first post season trip in baseball. He came back to Southeast Texas as Shea Landry’s assistant at WOS in 2013.
Westbrook is still working on who his three assistants will be. With new realignment next year Jasper will be in District 21-4A with Diboll, Huntington, Lufkin Hudson, and Shepherd.
2016 KOGT Coaches On The Move | ||
Coach | Moving To | Moving From |
Jeremy Gray | Vidor Hd Baseball | Vidor Asst |
Brad Jeffcoat | LCM Hd BBall | LCM Asst |
Rea Wrinkle | OF Admin | OF Hd Bball |
Brett McPhatter | OF Admin | PNG Asst |
Brandon Prouse | Jasper Asst | OF Asst |
Tim Erickson | OF Hd Baseball | HJ Hd Baseball |
Kurt Reeves (LCM’05) | Round Rock Admin | RR Asst |
Stephen Westbrook | Jasper Hd Base | WOS Asst |
Bret Hillin | Silsbee Asst | Deweyville Hd Base |
Amy McLaughlin | Lumberton Asst | OF Hd Softball |
Justin Trahan | WOS Asst | Springtown Asst |
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