COACHING JOB PULLS COONS AWAY FROM AREA

One of the more familiar faces on the area baseball coaching scene will be moving across the state in the next couple of months.

Bob Coons, an assistant baseball coach at Cape Girardeau Central High School for the past six seasons and also the head coach of Cape's Junior American Legion baseball team the past several summers, has accepted a teaching and coaching position at Logan-Rogersville High School near Springfield.

"It's something I feel like I have to do, but I do it with mixed emotions," said Coons. "It's tough to leave an area and a school you're really fond of.

"I wanted to be a head coach again. I've had some opportunities the last few years but I just kept turning them down. I didn't want to leave Cape Girardeau. I still don't want to leave Cape Girardeau. But I felt like this was just too good an opportunity."

A Union native, Coons has been coaching in the area for the past 12 years. He spent six years as the head baseball coach at Chaffee High School before coming to Central as an assistant.

Coons will be taking over a Logan-Rogersville program that has been solid the past several seasons.

"Their coach the past few years, Al Thomas, is taking an assistant principal's job at the high school," said Coons. "He's done a nice job with the team. They're in probably the toughest 3A conference in the state and they're one of the smallest schools in that conference. But they've been an upper tier team the last few years."

Coons, who has also served as an assistant football coach at Central, will be an assistant football coach at L-R as well. He'll teach physical education at the middle school.

Coons and his wife Lisa have two small children, a boy and a girl.

"They don't want to leave. It's kind of the same way I am," he said. "But it's been the same decision we've wrestled with the last three years.

"We'll miss all the friends we've made. That's the toughest part. But Springfield is a nice area and (Rogersville) is a great community to raise kids in."

While in Cape Girardeau, Coons was a part of state championship teams both with Central and the Cape Junior Legion squad.

"Any time you're part of state titles, you never forget that, and not just because of the players, but everybody involved with it," Coons said.

Coons, who will finish out the school year at Central, will be joining another former Central coach at L-R. Ex-Tiger head basketball coach Rod Gorman recently completed his first season in the same capacity at L-R, where he also serves as athletic director.