This story originally appeared in the May 24 edition of the weekly LINK Reader. To get these stories first, subscribe here.
Rob Sanders is looking at wet baseball grounds at St. Elizabeth Healthcare Field at Bellevue Vets. One of the last home games of the high school season is in peril.
The Bellevue coach makes contact with opponent Pendleton County. He tells the Wildcats they don’t have to make the 32-mile trip. It’s a disappointment. Bellevue is eager to end a three-game losing streak that interrupted a hot stretch when they won six of seven.
“Doubt we’ll make it up,” Sanders said of the cancelled contest. “Late season and nonconference.”
A few weeks later, Bellevue’s baseball season is over, and the six seniors are concentrating on studies. They are getting ready to graduate and enter a new phase of their lives. Senior catcher Aidan Dickerson is reflective. He flirted with a team-leading .400 batting average all season and led the Tigers in home runs. The other seniors are Jackson Day, Justin Holloway, Nick Keener, Wyatt Messman and Jackson Fornash.
“I think our strength this year is we finally have an older team,” Dickerson said. “It was nice to have that age in the dugout.”
It’s all going away. The seniors and eventually the coach will depart.
Next season is Sanders’ last as Bellevue baseball coach in his 20th and final year. He will exit with all the program’s major coaching records including seasons coached and games won. He nailed down career win No. 200 during the final weeks of the season. His teams have won seven conference championships and a district crown.
“I’ll worry about next year next year,” said Sanders, a winner of 500 games with club team Bluegrass Chiefs. “I want to stay in the moment right now and enjoy this year.”
That means saluting his seniors in the class of 2024.
“We’re losing great kids,” Sanders said. “They work their butts off and play hard despite any issues they may have. Most have been around since the eighth grade. That’s a lot of knowledge we’re not going to have. Next year, I’ve got one senior.”
That is shortstop TJ Sorrell, son of Bellevue girls basketball coach Tommy Sorrell. The lone junior was among team leaders in several hitting categories, including runs, hits, RBI and batting average. Sorrell was the most consistent pitcher posting an ERA under 4.00 most of the season.
“It’s going to be weird being the only senior,” Sorrell said. “I do see our sophomores stepping up with me next year as far as leadership.”
Their leader will soon follow his last big senior class off the Bellevue baseball diamond for good. Dickerson may not meet another man quite like his baseball coach.
“I feel like there is a lot of trust with coach Sanders,” Dickerson said. “And I’ll explain that. Sometimes in baseball you may question a coach. But I never question coach Sanders. There’s never a doubt. Coach knows what he’s doing.”
Even when he’s drawing up a difficult schedule?
“The schedule makes it fun,” Sorrell said.
Sanders has put perennial powers Beechwood, Campbell County, Dixie Heights, Highlands and Ryle on the non-district schedule. He puts the small-school Tigers in the annual Doc Morris Tournament and Bryan Stevenson Memorial.
“It’s my belief that while we’re teaching kids baseball, we’re showing them how to compete in life,” Sanders said. “We have to teach our kids that they belong on the same stage as the best. That’s why I like to play a schedule with bigger schools and better teams. Yeah, we take our beatings but the kids deserve that opportunity to play against the best.”
Had Sanders been content to have an easier schedule, Bellevue might never have enjoyed one of its biggest victories. The Tigers took down Covington Catholic 9-8 in 2008.
“We get better fundamentally when we play good teams,” Sorrell said. “Coach wants the best for us.”
Folks outside the baseball team seem to agree. Sanders has also served as Bellevue assistant athletic director and golf coach. He has coached girls basketball and volleyball.
Sanders also is the Bellevue Independent Schools Family Resource and Youth Service Center coordinator. Its mission is to minimize or eliminate outside the classroom barriers to learning for students and their families. Sanders works with outside agencies and providers. He helps direct those in need of services to professionals who can make a positive difference.
Sanders is so effective the Bellevue Board of Education gave him the United Way Do Good Award. He also received the Fred Award given by the Bellevue Education Foundation, and a Kentucky Colonel.
“Playing baseball is fun,” Sorrell said. “Coach Sanders makes it that way.”