Inductees

The letter from a player’s mom, written before she succumbed to cancer in 1992, rarely sees the light of day. Which is understandable.

Byron Hagler, a longtime high school baseball coach set to be inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, tears up just reading it. The mom addressed it to him, and included her son’s scholarship application to Missouri State University, in which he talked about Hagler’s positive impact.

“Wanted you to see 1^st hand what a great job you’ve done. You’ve produced a lot of ‘winners,’ not just winning teams over the years, and I believe all the Moms of your ball players feel the same way I do,” wrote Shelia, the mom of Licking High School’s Jason Todaro. “Continued success Byron – you’re a real blessing to our kids and our community.”

Indeed, the man who grew up listening to St. Louis Cardinals games through the crackle of an AM radio on his parent’s cattle farm in Texas County — and who absolutely loved the game – certainly made a difference in baseball. Just the way he wanted.

And now, after 577 wins in 28 seasons as a high school head coach, Hagler can call himself a Missouri Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Class of 2015.

“My dad told me, ‘For work, if you pick a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life,” Hagler recalled, and that’s exactly how it played out. “I never thought coaching baseball was work. It was fun.

“There wasn’t much money in it,” Hagler added. “But seeing a kid get better, seeing them going off to college, now that’s money.”

Overall, Hagler was 577-200 in high school baseball, ranking No. 2 all-time in state history. He reached the state semifinals nine times combined at Licking and Hillcrest, winning the Class 2 state championships at Licking in 1988 and 1989, and placing fourth in Class 4 for Hillcrest in 1998 and 2006.

Additionally, his 2002 Hillcrest summer team won the American Legion state championship with a 43-11 record, despite a roster of only 11 players.

This for a coach who got his start at a place, Climax Springs, whose baseball uniform pants were denim jeans – Levis at home, Wranglers on the road – before Hagler wanted a more appropriate look. Attention to detail? That’s Hagler.

“He was more than just a coach,” said Brad Green, a senior pitcher on Licking’s 1988 state championship team. “For most, he was a surrogate father figure to all of his players. He had the ability to bring out a player’s (best) that they didn’t even know they had inside.”

Hagler’s greatest strengths: he connected with ballplayers, rural or city; and became a student of the game long before life began tugging on the back of his own jersey.

A case in point: Licking’s 1989 state quarterfinals and the next two games. You might call it Hagler’s best work.

Days before the quarterfinal, the team lost its top pitcher, Phillip Gambill, to an apparent season-ending, eye injury in a freak batting practice accident.

At a small school, there usually aren’t many other options. Hagler, however, found one. He turned to Gary Case, despite the pitcher getting roughed up days earlier.

Yet Hagler’s pep talk, in which he implored the young man to forget about the last outing and that his talent could succeed, led to Case pitching a beauty and pitching the team into the final four.

However, Hagler had another trick up his sleeve. The night before the state semifinals, Gambill received medical clearance so long as he wore a protective guard in the field and while batting. Hagler worked him out privately as a precaution but didn’t reveal the situation to the team until the bus trip to state.

“On the bus ride, I stood up and said something like, ‘Because it’s Phillip’s senior year, I’m going to let him warm up on the field. If he does real well, we’ll just let him play,’” Hagler said.

For a team trying to repeat as state champs, Hagler struck the right note. The team responded with two wins, with Gambill supplying a home run in the semifinals and pitching the championship game.

That team finished 16-3, a year after Licking finished 18-5 in winning its first state title. Years later, he managed to win 43 games with Hillcrest’s summer legion team of only 11 players.

At Licking, Hagler also won eight Frisco League championships and 13 of 15 district titles. His 1983 and 1985 teams finished as state runners-up, and the 1986 team placed third. His 1994 team, his last at Licking, also reached the final four.

“Especially at Licking, we talked about baseball being a lot like life: There are days you are going to go 0-for-4 at work, but you’ve still got to do your job and go on,” Hagler said.

“Can you give back to the game? That’s how I gave back. At Licking, it wasn’t training to go pro. It was trying to be a better person.”

The son of the late June A Hagler and Lura Hagler, the coach grew up on a 290-acre farm and paying attention to detail came naturally.

Perhaps that helps explain Hagler’s deft touch in strategy. He knew the game well, having emerged as a standout shortstop at Licking High School — his .634 batting average in 1970, his senior year, stood atop Licking’s chart for years – before playing three seasons at Harding University in Arkansas.

Best of all, along the way, Hagler was the even keel kind of coach.

“I definitely think that’s why I gelled with him,” said former Hillcrest pitcher/shortstop Justin Skinner, part of the ’02 Legion state championship team. “He was someone to look up to, someone who would keep his composure and it really was easy to get along with him.”

Hagler is one of only four coaches in Hillcrest High School history. After 15 years at Licking (348-94), he won 222 games at Hillcrest, including seven Ozark Conference championships and five district championships.

It was proof that the strategy of small-town coaches can work in higher levels. In his final 27 seasons, Hagler’s teams never finished below .500.

“Hags, he is a great motivator,” said Mark Stratton, a former rival at Glendale High School and later his boss at NCAA Division II Drury University. “He doesn’t rah-rah and do double back flips. But once he gets the rubbing compound out, he starts polishing you.”

Hagler spent 2007 to 2014 as Drury’s pitching coach, with the team winning 259 games and reaching two NCAA D-II Tournaments. Hagler developed right-hander Will Landsheft, the program’s first draft pick, a 36th-rounder in 2014.

Only three of his high school players reached the minor leagues – Licking right-hander Tony Floyd (21^st round, 1988), Hillcrest’s Jon Barratt (fifth round, 2003) and Hillcrest’s Eric Deckard, who signed a free-agent deal in 1996. However, many others went on to college careers, including Todaro.

It’s been quite a career for Hagler. He and his wife, Dana, have a son, Lance, daughter-in-law Andrea and four grandchildren.

“It was just amazing,” Hagler said of coaching baseball. “Sometimes, it wasn’t the guy you thought was going to be great. That’s the beauty of it. That’s what I love about baseball. You have to prepare them all.”