Inductees

He had long dreamed the dream. Of coaching a high school baseball team. Of teaching teenagers about the game he loved. Of filling out lineup cards and winning games and, well, everything else great about it.

Truth is, Mike Essick had to climb from the very bottom to get there. In fact, the journey began literally from the trenches.

Back when he was 31 years old, Essick was in a hole, working to put in a sewer system at Freemont Hills, and wondering if a full-time coaching job would ever come about. After all, seven years had passed since leaving college until one day the principal and assistant principal of Ozark High School stopped by – with a job offer.

“It was God planning your way,” Essick will tell you. “And hard to believe – when you’re offered and your chest-deep with a pick and shovel?”

It’s a story that still awes Essick, who went on to awe everybody else. Simply put, he raised the statewide profile of Ozark High School’s baseball program. And it’s why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Essick with the Class of 2018.

The 2018 spring season marked his 24^th year as Ozark’s head coach, and he is now 449-210. He has taken four clubs to four Final Fours, with the program winning two state championships – the Class 3 title in 2003 and the Class 4 title in 2008. His 2002 team placed third, while his 2011 Ozark Tigers placed fourth.

Just as notable, his teams have secured six district championships and 14 Central Ozark Conference crowns. That’s a remarkable feat, collectively, given the seriousness of opposing coaching staffs and talent-rich rosters throughout southwest Missouri.

And to think Essick’s career almost never happened.

“I grew up on a farm in Highlandville. The only things I knew were farm work and sports,” Essick said. “Coming out of Spokane High School (he was 1980 graduate), I had offers to play several places. If baseball didn’t work out, I was going to go into coaching.”

Essick did impress. After leading Spokane to a third-place finish at the state tournament his senior year, he was an NAIA All-American and the 1984 District 16 (Missouri) Player of the Year for College of the Ozarks.

However, after several tryouts for pro scouts, pro ball never materialized, and so he set out to coach but had to roll up his sleeves to get there.

Essick spent 2 ½ years working for Kraft Foods in Springfield and, even though he earned a physical education degree at C of O, most high schools back then filled their one or two P.E. jobs with football and basketball coaches.

Essick kept trying. He helped clubs in Galena, Reeds Spring and Spokane but either on a part-time basis or as a temporary full-timer until a regular teacher returned.

Eventually, he turned to LPI Paving. It was around that time that Ozark had an opening. Then-coach Mark Wheeler needed an assistant in 1994.

“The rest is history,” Essick said. When they offered, “I was like, ‘Heck, yeah.’”

He became head coach the next year,

“I made a lot of mistakes (in the early years),” Essick said. “I had that farm work mentality. That’s how I was raised, and how I was coached. My (college) coach was a military guy. I did a lot of yelling and screaming. That’s just all I knew.”

Eventually, Essick found his own style.

“I came to learn that you better figure out how to handle each player because the personalities are so different,” Essick said.

It’s no wonder, then, that Essick has received numerous awards, including two Coach of the Year honors in 2004 – from the National High School Baseball Coaches Association District 5 and the Greater Midwest Professional Baseball Scouts Association. He also was inducted into the Missouri High School Baseball Coaches Association in 2014.

Essick is certainly appreciative of players and assistants putting in the time, as well as the support of administrators and parents, and the community at large. Along the way, he and wife Becky raised sons Shawn and Jordan Hilton, and daughter Haley.

“I am so fortunate. I say this all the time to players and students: Find something you are passionate about, and get paid to do it, and you’ll never work a day in your life. I’ve never gotten out of bed in the morning thinking, ‘Oh, I have to go to school today,’” Essick said. “Getting to do this is amazing, because of all of the rewards.”