Every good coach I’ve ever known has had a little bit of Hannibal Smith in him.

If you know your TV history, you know Smith was the leader of “The A-Team,” the protagonists on a program that was one of the high points of `80s television. As played by George Peppard (and not Liam Neeson in the blasphemous 2010 movie adaptation), the unflappable Smith had a favorite saying whenever his small squad of mercenaries squashed the bad guys — “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Good coaches have something in common with Smith. No, not the enviable ability to transform heads of cabbage into artillery shells. They, too, love it when a plan comes together.

It has to be the ultimate satisfaction for a coach to mold a team, watch it jell and carry out the plan, even though, as “The A-Team” discovered every week, the plan never goes off without a few hitches.

It has to be especially gratifying to cobble a team together from several different towns and schools. The challenges of putting such a team together are numerous. Everyone was a star, or at least a starter, at their own school. They were the go-to guy in key games and situations. When the disparate parts are assembled, they find themselves in a new role, or in an unfamiliar seat on the bench.

Over the past six months, we’ve had a nice little run of local teams who have jelled into the best in the state, even the best in the nation. In the spring, the LAYHL midgets took home the U18 Tier II national title. This summer, Apple Valley won the 13-15 year old Babe Ruth state title, and Gayton Post 31 won its second straight state American Legion championship.

Gayton bowed out of this week’s Northeast Regional because its normally relentless lineup broke out in hives with runners on base. That’s baseball. No matter how long the season, it has its ebb and flow, and sometimes you get the ebb when at the worst time.

But the sudden end to its season doesn’t diminish what coach Todd Cifelli and his players have accomplished in the last four years. If anything, it validates the plan and the players that carried it out.

Cifelli has brought players together from Lewiston, Edward Little, St. Dom’s and Lisbon and they’ve gone on an unprecedented run — 89-17 in four years, state runners-up in 2008 and state champions in 2010 and 2011. Look through the Maine American Legion record books and you’ll see Gayton has carved itself a spot among the best teams the state has produced, behind only the Portland powerhouses Nova Seafood and Andrews Post.

They’ve done it with a prolific offense that scored an astounding 628 runs in the last two years and steady, solid pitching. Clearly, Gayton had the talent. It rarely lacked talent even before Cifelli took over. The difference has been Cifelli’s plan, and the players’ commitment to carry out to fruition.

Cifelli hatched the plan when he took over an underachieving Lewiston baseball program in 2006. Six seasons later, the Blue Devils were playing in their first state championship game in 61 years.

He immediately opened the lines of communication with his players, and emphasized that above all else, they were there to enjoy playing baseball. In turn, he added some elements to make the game more enjoyable for them — new uniforms, a game under the lights against rival EL, and a public address announcer at home games.

Of course, nothing is more fun than winning. And Cifelli makes his players understand it is up to them to make that happen — show up for, and work hard in, practice; take the right approach to the plate and the mound; stay on your toes on defense mentally and physically and be prepared for any situation; if you’re on the bench, be ready when the team needs you.

It’s a simple concept, once a player becomes accountable to the game, he will be accountable to the team.

Simple in theory, not in execution. Cifelli has been fortunate to have team leaders who have helped him communicate and reinforce his philosophy, and players who are willing to listen and dedicate themselves to getting better. With the understanding that they will be held accountable for their actions on and off the field, the players know the game and the team don’t revolve around them.

That’s not an easy concept to teach teenage boys these days. Getting a veritable all-star team like Gayton to buy into it would be daunting to a lot of coaches.

But Cifelli has always made it clear whenever he gathers his players in June that those who give the team the best chance to win will play, regardless of how old they are or what school they attend. From the start of the first practice, he has 15 talented players trying to prove that they deserve to be on the field.

My colleague Mr. Oakes recently wrote about the decline of American Legion baseball in the state. One thing he didn’t mention is it’s tough to attract young players to a sport or league when they know there isn’t a plan, a direction, to bring the team together.

It’s easy to spot coaches without a plan, at least a viable one. They coach by the seat of their pants. They bow to whims and hunches. Their players are left in a lurch, wondering what their roles are, what the team’s goals are, and whether the guy next to him in the field is playing for the same reasons he is.

Inevitably, a team without a plan the players can believe in is a losing team, and a coach without a plan his players can subscribe to is a coach without a job.

Hey, “The A-Team” never lost, did they? That’s because Hannibal had everything under control. You think he was going to let B.A. run the show?