Shaping boys' lives

                  If Mike Emerson succeeds with Seahawks baseball like he did as a college outfielder, then local fans of the great American game have some exciting seasons in store.

                  And if he, together with his fellow teachers and coaches, can shape the achievements, and sharpen the ambitions, of local boys like he did at a privately-run all-boys alternative school in Bay County, then plenty of Seahawks have some fulfilling years ahead.

                  Emerson, newly hired as the high school ESE teacher, and coach of the Seahawks baseball program, boils down his philosophy on turning around kids' lives to a simple imperative.

"Every day is a new day. Whatever you did yesterday, that was yesterday," he said. "You don't hold the past over the kid's head."

And that's the same type of thinking he plans to use in rejuvenating the baseball program. Putting the yesterdays in the past, and focusing on the future.

"It's not going to be ‘put your cleats on and go out to play.' It's going to be organized baseball," said Emerson, on a tour of the Franklin County High School baseball diamonds. "I see it as an opportunity to start something, and build a program people can be proud of."

He plans to schedule games against squads from bigger schools, like Rutherford, Mosley, Florida High and Maclay, teams with well-known baseball programs.

"We'll learn from our losses too," he said. "I want the kids to see good pitching. I want them to see the guys from 4A and 5A programs. To me these programs are well-known and well-established,  and they get those kids who can pitch.

"I want that caliber of baseball here," said Emerson. "I want to teach the pitchers to hit locations, to throw off-speed. I want to get kids to throw the strikes when they need to.

"Anybody can hit a fastball," he said. "Hitting spots is probably the most important thing you can get."

And he ought to know baseball, because that's a game he's already proved he can play.

Believes in hitting to the opposite field

While Emerson also expects to serve as an assistant to head football coach Josh Wright, with whom he'll be sharing a house in Magnolia Bluffs, Emerson is emphatic as to which sport is number one.

                  "I'm a baseball guy," he said.

                  A native of Panama City, Emerson graduated in 1991 from Mosley High School. He started off playing third base but in his junior year, switched to the outfield.

                  "I made one diving catch and I never saw the infield again," he said.

In high school Emerson stood 6' and weighed 188 pounds, but by college he had grown two inches and packed on 220 pounds.

"I was a late bloomer, I guess," he said.

                  After graduation , Emerson first went to George Wallace Community College, in Dothan, AL, and then played one year, one very distinguished year, in 1995 at Brewton-Parker, a private Christian Baptist College in Mount Vernon, GA.

                  As right fielder for the Brewton-Parker Barons, a team affiliated with the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics), Emerson was first team All-Conference, first team All-American and Player of the Year.

                  He batted .399, with 98 runs batted in, nine triples, and 18 home runs, with a slugging percentage over .800.

                  To what does he attribute his breakthrough at the plate?

                  "I learned how to hit to the opposite field," he said, explaining that his batting average grew by close to 100 points once he became better schooled at hitting to where opponents weren't expecting.

"That's where most of my power was, to right center," he said. "That's what I need to teach the kids. If you open up and hit to right field, that makes you a .400 hitter. That's the basics I need to teach them"

                  In 1996, Emerson went on to play for the University of West Florida Argonauts, again proving his prowess with a .344 batting average, as he started 54 of 55 games. That season he had a 14-game hitting streak, still among the best in school history, had 95 total bases and smacked five home runs and 95 runs batted in.

                  But with his many plate appearances, he also made the record books by striking out 41 times that season, second highest in school history.

Emerson played independent ball over the summer for three seasons, eying a shot at professional baseball as he played for the semi-pro Valdosta Red Sox, before ultimately returning to school to finish his degree and embark on a teaching career.

"I gave it a good shot. I could hit, I could throw, but when you look at speed..." he said, his voice trailing off into the red dust of the Seahawks infield.

The lesson Emerson wants to impart to the students he will work with is that he is an example of how they can put the pieces together and shape their own careers.

"I was an average student, middle of the class," he said. "I wasn't going to go to college on academics. I had athletics."

Focusing on reaching boys

Emerson earned a bachelor's in physical education and health from the University of West Florida in 2001, where he served as assistant baseball coach from August 1999 until June 2002.

He taught three years at Panama City's Rutherford High School, where he also was assistant coach for both baseball and football.

For the last five years, he was at the private Emerald Bay Academy, where he served as a learning community instructional leader, a type of dean position, at this alternative school serving middle and high school boys.

Emerson is proud of his years at Emerald Bay, where 70 percent passed the FCATs in 10th grade in high school, nearly double the percentage at A.D. Harris, Bay County's leading alternative school.

He plans to focus on truancy, grades and behavior, and provide the patient focus so necessary in these young peoples' lives. "I'm willing to sit down with a kid, even if he's being a behavior problem," he said. "They come with an attitude."

Emerson said he likes the all-boys format ("It takes out some of the juvenile stuff. There's no showing off.") but recognizes that the challenges at Franklin County will confront both genders as they work to shrug off, in some cases, years of generational poverty.

"I want to tell them ‘Surprise people. Do something they think you can't do..'" he said. "They may not choose to leave, but I want them to see other opportunities outside of school., and if you're willing to make the sacrifice, to bring some of the knowledge back to town.

"We'll look at each kid individually and see," he said.