Coach Brian Harlamert – ‘Harley’ – accepts a presentation bat from the Phoenix Bat Company commemorating his second OHSAA state title in 2019. (Press Pros File Photos)
The evidence of a legacy, and the proof that words and deeds live beyond the physical presence of coach…how Lou Brunswick and Brian Harlamert’s imprint could be felt in Coldwater’s district win.
I looked for him when I walked onto the Bluffton baseball field on Saturday. He wasn’t there, of course, but one glance at the area behind the backstop, and just to the right of the Coldwater dugout would have been where Lou Brunswick would have been sitting.
He would have been in that folding chair, legs crossed, smiling at the prospect of another Cavalier district final win and a trip to the regional round, and then the state tournament. And he would have been telling stories. Lord, how the man could tell you baseball stories about his five state championships – the coaches he knew, and the ones he beat along the way.
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“Want to hear a good one about Vince Chickerella?” he might say. And at 90 he could still spin a yarn about nearly everyone he’d met on his path to 750 career wins, the same ones you’d heard countless times before. But somehow Lou always added something different, and new, to make it worth hearing one more time.
And I looked in the dugout, at the wall where current coach Cory Klenke had posted the lineup, along with the roster and lineup for Liberty Benton…exactly the way Brian Harlamert would have done it. The five same points about Coldwater baseball would have been printed and posted nearby – play hard, play with character, never give up, etc. – just like Klenke did it on Saturday.
Harlamert died suddenly at age 51 in September of 2022, just three years after winning his second state baseball title in 2019, and the seventh in the history of Coldwater baseball, five of which belonged to Lou Brunswick (’83,’84, ’87, ’90, and ’92).
Ironically, Brunswick passed away just one week after Harlamert in 2022, at age 93, and no doubt with a smile and a memory of some game, some coach, someone he coached, or something he’d learned along the way that he would have shared with others…had he just had a moment longer.
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Influence is a wonderful thing in both sports and education, the imprint that a coach or a teacher leaves on impressionable kids that governs their lives and how they respond forever. When Cory Klenke talked with me about Saturday’s win, post-game, I could barely contain a smile when he said: “We knew we had a good opportunity, but I won’t take credit away from Liberty Benton and how they started the game. They put some good at bats together to get those two runs.”
He learned that from Brian Harlamert, who when he spoke with me following his 2014 win over favored Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, said: “What a great day and a great win for our kids, but I want to commend Cincinnati Hills for the season they had and the way they play the game. That’s a great baseball team and they deserved to be here.” I still have my notes.
“There’s a reason why the game lasts nine innings. You can lose a game in the first, but you don’t win the game in the first. You have to keep playing.” – Lou Brunswick
Klenke learned from Harlamert, as player and coach, and Harlamert learned from Lou Brunswick, playing on two of his five title teams in 1987 and 1990.
And when Klenke said Saturday: “We answered the challenge after the first inning. No one hit the panic button. We felt like we were going to score some runs. It was great to respond the way we did.” It was all so familiar.
That was Lou, who would sit in that lawn chair with his legs crossed and say, “There’s a reason why the game lasts nine innings. You can lose a game in the first, but you don’t win the game in the first. You have to keep playing.”
And eerily, read more of what Klenke added in Saturday’s post-game, when he said: “I knew we would keep going.”
Teachers and coaches? I’m at that stage in life where what I learned in high school seems to follow me everywhere I go.
My baseball coach at Piqua was Jim Hardman, a contemporary of Lou Brunswick, who was fond of saying, “Strike out three times fewer than the other team…put the ball in play…force them to make a play to get you out and they might give you the game.”
Hardman also told me months before he passed: “Learn to love the game (baseball) and baseball will love you back for the rest of your life.”
Saturday Cory Klenke talked about how with all the success his seniors had had in football (Blockberger, Depweg, Pottkotter, Mason Welsch, et. al.)…how committed they were to baseball, and how much they loved to play the game.
Learn to love the game…and baseball will love you back for the rest of your life.
Lou used to say, “There’s no game like baseball…where it’s just you and the moment. You have to catch the ball when you’re the only one who can catch it. You have to get the two-out hit when you’re the one at bat and there’s a runner on third. You have to throw strikes because you’re the only pitcher on the mound. No one can do it for you.”
He was talking about Braxton Taylor (fourth inning), Miles Pottkotter (fifth inning), and Mason Welsch (4.2 innings of dependable relief pitching).
And son of a gun, if Cory Klenke didn’t say: “We understand, and we talk about it. We’re not going to lose because the moment’s too big.”
Yes, Lou and Harley were there Saturday….
You just didn’t see them!
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