Since being hired as the Greyhounds new head baseball coach around the middle of May, Noble Coley estimates he has traveled back and forth between Gray and his now former school in Bacon County between three and five times.
That’s a one-way trip of around 150 miles, by the way.
Needless to say, Coley and his family are ready to get settled in Jones County, and that process is now accelerated with them moving to town earlier this week with getting things up to speed with a coaching staff and players to begin after the second GHSA dead week the first week of July.
“It’s been crazy, just trying to sew up loose ends here and get the new journey started in between trying to find a place to live here, selling our place down there and my wife starting her new job on July 8,” Coley said. “After we go on vacation, it’ll be non-stop, and we’ll be rocking and rolling with baseball. It’s definitely been a whirlwind.”
Coley comes to Gray after six years at Bacon County as head coach, pacing the Raiders to one Elite 8 berth and two Sweet 16 trips. Now, the Hawkinsville native is looking forward to hitting the ground running at JCHS, along with the rest of his family. That includes his wife, Megan, a registered nurse who will also be starting a job at a new place.
“We’re excited to finally be up there and not be going back and forth. I’m just ready to get there and get started,” Coley said. “My wife is ready to start her new job. We’re just ready to get there and get started; that’s our biggest thing.”
So why would a coach such as Coley, also a former assistant at Coffee High School, look northward after having success at a school like Bacon County?
“To me, it was the opportunity. I started as an assistant at a bigger school and then went to Bacon and had some success there,” Coley said. “Everyone always wants to move up wants that challenge. To me, it was the opportunity to coach at a higher level. Not to say that single A is not a high level, because there are some really good teams, but it’s another caliber.”
Coley comes to a Greyhounds program that the past two seasons gave top-seeded, first-round opponents a firm challenge in the first round of the state tournament. JCHS last advanced past the first round in 2015.
To Coley, success for the Greyhounds program will begin not just off the field but in taking care of minor details.
“The big thing to me is to build a winning tradition. You have to build the discipline of it first,” Coley said. “To me, everything is a big thing, because everything plays a major role. We’re sticklers about grades and things like that and how we carry ourselves on and off the field.”
Part of laying the groundwork for Coley with the Greyhounds came when he not only met with returning players shortly after his hiring, but having phone conversations with them afterwards.
“I asked them, ‘what do you want?’ Obviously, everybody wants to win state, but these kids want to host a playoff game and do some other things,” Coley said. “So, my question to them was, ‘is your effort matching your goals or are you lowering your goals to match your effort?’ I think they’re excited to get started.”
So what kind of the baseball can fans expect from a Coley-coached team? First of all, it’ll start with having sound pitching and defense with being the aggressor on the basepaths.
“If you don’t have pitching, you won’t have success, but you have to be good on defense, too. We’ll focus a lot on pitching and defense,” Coley said. “Our offensive approach is we want to be aggressive and create as much confusion as we can against other teams. We want to be aggressive on the base paths. If you’ve got a pretty good outfield, you’ll have to throw me out twice before I stop sending somebody. As long as the opportunity is there, we’ll keep attacking.”
