Some days, Ron Plourde stops himself in the middle of raking the pitcher’s mound or watering down the infield on a cloudless day at Skidmore College and copes with the shameful thought that he’s getting paid.
“My full-time job is baseball,” said Plourde. “What could be better than that? There was a time when I’d almost given up the dream of being a head baseball coach in college because once guys get these jobs, they don’t give them up.”
Plourde, a 1987 graduate of Lewiston High School, caught his opportunity of a lifetime when he heard that Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., wanted to hire a baseball coach with a background in exercise science. That was Plourde’s area of concentration at Saint Joseph’s College, where he followed his standout career on the diamond as an assistant coach under Will Sanborn.
Seven seasons later, Plourde has guided the Thoroughbreds into uncharted territory. Skidmore made the NCAA Division III playoff field for the first time as the No. 2 seed in the six-team New York State region.
The winner of this weekend’s double-elimination playoff in Auburn, N.Y., advances to the College World Series in Appleton, Wis., on May 27-31.
Skidmore enters the tournament as Liberty League champion, winner of five straight games and 12 of its last 13.
“In the last month, we just played solid baseball,” Plourde said. “Our pitching has been pretty good all along, but our defense has just been outstanding the last month or so.”
Plourde said his time as an understudy to Sanborn and Jim Graffam at St. Joe’s equipped him to run his own program.
While there’s arguably less pressure to win at all costs in Division III, the smaller budget requires Plourde to be a jack-of-all-trades, another quality that he learned from his mentor, Sanborn.
He’s surrounded himself with top-notch people. The Skidmore coaches were just named the league’s staff of the year.
Skidmore is one of seven teams in the Liberty League, a coalition of top academic schools similar to the New England Small College Athletic Conference that’s home to Bates, Bowdoin and Colby.
“We compete for a lot of the same kids. No matter where you’re a coach, there are different challenges,” Plourde said. “There are certain kids academically that we know we won’t pursue, but it’s a myth that they’re all affluent kids. Baseball is a still a blue-collar sport.”
Plourde still makes the most of his New England connections. Many of his players emerge from Massachusetts and Connecticut prep school programs.
This week, his office and cellular phones have rung incessantly with good wishes from friends and colleagues in Lewiston, Auburn and Standish who haven’t forgotten him.
The coach loves his new home turf but hasn’t forgotten those who had a hand in drilling him for his dream job.
“I go all the way back to coaching American Legion ball with John Peterson and John Hesler,” Plourde said. “I’ve been able to take a little bit from a lot of great coaches and put it together. It’s not an easy road, but it’s been a good run.”
Where is she now?
The University of Maine at Farmington made an intriguing hire this week by naming Katie (Clark) Herbine as its women’s cross country coach.
Herbine is most closely associated with basketball. The Bangor native made four consecutive NCAA Division I tournament appearances with the University of Maine women’s basketball team and was captain in Orono during the 1999-2000 season. But she also was a track and field star at Bangor High.
Most recently, Herbine spent two years as an attorney with a law firm in Naples, Fla., and took up running marathons as a hobby. She completed the 2003 Chicago Marathon and 2005 Disney Marathon.
Herbine, who owns a farm in nearby Starks, is the fourth women’s cross country coach at UMF. The Beavers have captured six league championships and six league runner of the year honors in the last seven seasons.
Stars are out
Five players with local connections were named to the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association All-New England team this week.
Senior catcher Derek McIntosh of St. Joe’s (Edward Little HS) and junior pitcher Tip Fairchild of Southern Maine (Monmouth) were first-team selections.
Bryan Lambert (EL) scored second-team recognition as closer at Brandeis. Bates catcher Charlie Engasser and Bowdoin outfielder Jared Lemieux (Maranacook) took third-team nods.
Comments are no longer available on this story