Once given a choice between baseball and staying married, Wauwatosa East baseball coach Jerry Toubl picked baseball. Anyone associated with Red Raider baseball over the years was happy he took the latter.
Toubl officially hung up his spikes last week - and a detailed cover story which will be in the Dec. 6 issue of WauwatosaNow. But here's a quick behind the look scenes of how hard it was for the likeable coach to step down.
He's won four conference championships in four different conferences over his 27-year career at Tosa East. He won a state title in 1997, nine regional titles and three sectional titles. His lifetime mark was 446-350, a .560 winning mark and his conference record was 284-242.
Unfortunately, he had his worse season of his career last summer, winning only six of 37 games and going 0-21 in the Greater Metro Conference. Toubl says this was not the reason for his retiring last week and he emphasized that when his team asked him that question when they met last week.
But Toubl struggled last season. The losing tore him apart and there was pain in his voice whenever we talked. He talked about hanging it up and at one point this summer he typed up his resignation and turned it in to athletic director Linda Vitrano. But Vitrano refused to accept it and wisely told him to take some time and think about it.
Last week I received an email from him, telling me "It was just time." When I called Vitrano a few days later, she told me he was literally going into the principal's office in 20 minutes and they were still trying to talk him out of it. She called me the next day and told me Toubl stuck to his guns.
Toubl recalled many memories last Saturday during an interview, but the thing he will remember the most will be all the great relationships he had with parents, players, coaches and even umpires (ugh).
Toubl cared about Tosa East baseball. In fact, he put his money where his mouth was over the years, using his salary to buy his team bats, uniforms and everything the budget didn't cover.
Tosa East will probably lean on him when the plan to build another field next to the current one when the plan goes through. Some people feel that Toubl may not be done coaching. He went ahead and put together the 2008 schedule for the Red Raiders because he thought he would be back.
He's a young 52 and suddenly, for the first time in his life, he's going to have the summer off. We all hope he enjoys it and does the things he hasn't been able to do the last 27 years.
But people have a tendency to be selfish - me included - and I hope down the road I get another chance to see Toubl doing what he did best.
Coach baseball and influence youngsters in a positive way.
