The Durango High School baseball team will be under new leadership next season. Head coach Austin Anderson is moving on from the baseball team after one season as an assistant coach and this past season as a head coach. The Demons went 8-15 overall and lost their last 11 games this year with Anderson as head coach.
Anderson and his family are moving up to Denver so his wife can pursue a doctorate in occupational therapy.
“My wife has supported me for three years since we’ve been down here in Durango and she got a great opportunity to go get a doctorate in occupational therapy,” Anderson said. “So it’s my time to support her and my little son. I’m really going to be missing the players and coaching this year was awesome. It really took a lot to make the decision to move on and everyone’s been super supportive so I’m really thankful.”
Anderson served as an assistant under former longtime coach Rob Coddington.
With only two seniors departing, the Durango baseball team should be able to build upon this past season. Anderson said the Southwest League should watch out as the Demons should be on the rise over the next few seasons.
Anderson pointed to sophomore Austin Romero as a key factor that will help drive and keep the team accountable.
The now-former head coach expects the players he coached to get over the hump as they competed in a lot of close games this year.
Anderson hopes the program can keep the numbers it currently has with Durango youth baseball players wanting to play for the Demons’ program in the future.
“It's unfortunate when you have a solid coach and life situations come into play and you only get the opportunity to work with them for just a year,” Durango Athletic Director Ryan Knorr said about Anderson. “With all the coach turnover, one of the things I'm really trying to do is build better relationships with the coaches and it's hard when life circumstances come in, or they're only here for just a year … He had the vision and it's unfortunate that he wasn't able to stay longer to see it through.”
Knorr complimented Anderson on his work with the youth teams. One of Knorr’s fondest memories was the Durango youth baseball night that Anderson facilitated where the kids ran around the bases and then Anderson talked to them at home plate.
“He saw the big picture in terms of running a baseball program for the high school, but how that trickles down to the whole community, how that starts really at a young age if you're really going to build a program,” Knorr said.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
