Hatfield brings back-to-back wins for Swampcats

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The following ran this summer in The Manning Times' Rugged magazine.

Barry Hatfield is entering his eighth year as a coach and teacher at Laurence Manning Academy.

He just completed his fourth year as head coach of the varsity Swampcats baseball team by taking his players to their second State Championship title in two years.

“It’s challenging to go back-to-back,” said Athletic Director Robbie Briggs. “When you’re the defending champion, there’s a target on your back. Everyone wants to unseat the reigning State Champs.”

Hatfield wasn’t content to let his players - many of whom returned from the 2016 State Championship winning team - rest on their laurels.

“You still have to put in the work,” said Hatfield. “You can go into a game with confidence from that previous winning season, but that confidence isn’t going to get the job done. That confidence isn’t going to beat the other team.”

A Sumter native, Hatfield played baseball while a student at The Citadel from 1982 to 1985.

“I played there for three years, until an arm injury ended my career,” said Hatfield, who completed his bachelor’s degree in education at Coastal Carolina in 1992.

“I tore my rotator cuff when I was pitching in a game during the spring break of our junior year at The Citadel,” said Hatfield. “It was just a freak accident.”

Hatfield said he was up to pitch in the next inning of the game.

“We had one of those very short innings, where you only have about nine pitches overall,” said Hatfield. “I wasn’t loosened up enough.”

Hatfield wound up a screwball and threw it when he got to the mound.

“And that was that,” he said. “The injury ended my career.”

Medicine in the mid-1980s was not what it is these days, Hatfield said wistfully.

“You didn’t have all the things they can do today to fix those types of things,” he said. “I understood that I could probably only come back about 85 percent of what I was before the injury. I decided that it was in my best interest, and the team’s, to go ahead and end my career. I didn’t want to also cause any further damage.”

While healing and undergoing rehabilitation, Hatfield worked with his family business - Hatfield Builders - throughout the remainder of the 1980s.

“I had been a business major at The Citadel,” said Hatfield. “When I got the coaching bug, I realized the only way to coach was to get my education degree. So changing degrees to do that and become a teacher and a coach, it took some time. That’s why I graduated in 1992. I had to start all over again.

As he recuperated from his injury and worked with the family business, Hatfield got the opportunity to coach with the American Legion P-15’s in Sumter.

“Wally Jones took over as head coach, and I coached with him for a good many years,” said Hatfield. “That’s where I got the coaching bug. Had I not gotten the injury, I may never have realized that I enjoyed coaching as much as I do.”

Hatfield would come back each season to help with the P-15’s while serving as the assistant football and baseball coach at Furman High School until it changed designations to serve middle school grades in 1996..

As the P-15’s became more and more successful throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Hatfield found it difficult to manage both his responsibilities at Furman and with the American Legion team.

“I had to give up the P-15’s,” said Hatfield. “I eventually moved up to Lakewood when they had the consolidation of the schools that put Furman as a middle school instead of a high school.”

Hatfield would remain with the Gators for 18 years.

“I was named the head football and baseball coach at Furman the last year it was a high school,” he said. “Then, I went to Lakewood and remained there until I came to Laurence Manning Academy.”

Along with his coaching responsibilities, Hatfield works in the classroom as a U.S. government and U.S. history teacher.

“I’ve always had a huge interest in history,” he said. “My best and most favorite subjects were always math and history. I watch the History Channel for fun, not because I’m trying to learn anything, although I do.”

While at Lakewood, Hatfield guided his teams to the Lower State semifinals in baseball for several seasons.

“We were in the playoffs for nine straight years before I left,” he said. “We won two conferences and two districts at Lakewood.”

In his first year as the head coach at LMA, his players made it all the way to the state finals.

“We lost,” he said. “The second year, we lost in the semifinals.”

But the last two years were magical.

“For the past two years, we’ve been able to put it together and win those state titles,” he said. “It was the first time in 24 years that the baseball team was able to do that.”

Hatfield has also led a successful varsity football team at LMA for the past few years. The team has made the state finals in two of the last three seasons. Hatfield said he will coach middle school football starting in the 2017 season.

For his efforts as a coach, the High School Sports Report named him the South Carolina Independent School Association Baseball Coach of the Year.

“It’s an honor to be recognized for what I’ve accomplished,” said Hatfield. “But I’m not in it for awards or anything like that. I’m in it for the kids and the relationships I’ve built over the years.”

Hatfield has been in the game so long, he said, that now he is coaching former players’ sons and daughters.

“I’m on my second generation of kids now,” he said. “It’s nice that I have that trust from their parents. They send their kids to me because we had that relationship when they played for me.”

Hatfield said his coaching philosophy relies on having his players “play good defense.”

“It all starts there,” he said. “I also want my players to be fundamentally sound. We’re not looking for great plays. We’re just trying to make the routine play every time. Nothing fancy. Just get the job done.”