New head coach set to rebuild Apaches’ baseball

GONZALES — Rebuilding is not a word fans want to hear about their team. When they hear the word rebuild they think, “oh no, another year of losing.”

But that doesn’t bother new head baseball coach Lance Alford who will be coming in with rebuilding experience. As he puts it, “as long as the kids are willing and wanting to get better at it, we can make it happen. I have 100 percent belief that we can make it happen.”

There were many factors in bringing in Alford to Gonzales, who previously worked at Flatonia. One of which was the fact that his family is already rooted here in town.

“He’s been around town because his wife teaches here,” athletic director Kodi Crane said. “We go to church together, his son plays on my son’s baseball team, so I knew him. I didn’t know him in a coaching setting; we’ve never sat down and talked. I knew he was a baseball guy, I knew he had a big interest in being here if it ever worked out.”

Alford mentioned how his family raved about how great the schools were here in Gonzales, so he came to visit and was impressed.

“We really just like the community a lot,” Alford said.

When he applied, Crane weighed the options and thought Alford’s commitment to Gonzales would work best for the baseball program.

“He has head coaching experience and he’s already committed to the town of Gonzales,” Crane explained, “so we’re going to get some longevity which I think that’s really important for the future of our baseball program. He’s very sharp, his dad was a coach, been around the game his whole life, very fundamental oriented, you know, start from the basics and build up and that’ll be good for our program.”

Baseball is in Alford’s blood. His father, A.D. “Al” Alford of McKinney has multiple achievements in the game of baseball, including becoming a member of the Amateur Baseball Umpires’ Association Hall of Fame and founding the McKinney Mavericks Summer Baseball Organization.

So when Crane said Alford was in baseball all his life, he truly meant it.

“I went to my first game when I was about six weeks old,” Alford laughed. “My dad was a summer league coach.”

After working a lot of summer league baseball, Alford began his high school coaching career in Van Alstyne, a town between McKinney and Sherman. Afterward, he went to Allen, Coppell, back to McKinney, to Smithville and then in Flatonia before coming here to Gonzales.

His stop in McKinney was an interesting one, especially since that’s where his rebuilding experience comes in.

“I was at McKinney Christian Academy, I came in there and the team had never won a game at all,” Alford recalled. “The four years I was there, we went to the playoffs three out of four years. I’m used to that type of environment. I like the challenge and I’m excited about the opportunity because just seeing the kids work out in the offseason, lot of good kids here and some pretty good looking athletes too. It’s exciting.”

Travis Summers of the McKinney Courier-Gazette wrote in 2008 about the turnaround Alford had on that team.

“After a difficult non-district schedule,” Summers wrote, “MCA defeated Arlington Burton Adventist Academy, 22-2, to being the 2-3A season.

“Not only was it the first win of the season, the 20-run victory was the first in the history of the Mustangs’ baseball program.”

That season, MCA would reach the playoffs. Before that 2008 season, the Mustangs had only played a full season once before due to the low turnout and injuries or bad grades that would knock a player or two off the roster.

This season, the Mustangs posted a winning record in district, taking second place behind Red Oak Ovilla Christian.

That winning mentality is something Alford wants to instill in the Apaches’ baseball program, a program that hasn’t won a district game in two years.

“I come in expecting to win every game,” he said, “going to instill that mentality into the kids. We’re going to be positive every time, we’re going to focus on making sure we are fundamentally sound in every aspect, we’re going to start from the very beginning on how to throw the ball and go from there.”

Alford is going back to the basics. Rebuilding a program starts at the bottom and he’s going to work his way up. He understands that mistakes are going to happen early on, but working through them and making sure his kids are going full speed is going to be key.

“Mental errors are going to happen, and I can handle mental errors,” he explained. “If you make a mistake here that’s okay. It’s if you make those errors and not going full speed. The hesitation is what I want to get out of the habit of, if there is a habit of that, I want to try to get that out and just make sure that they’re going full speed and if there is a mistake, then we can correct that at full speed. It’s the part where they hesitate and making that mistake, that’s the hard part trying to get them out of that. And you can’t play the game hesitant, you have to be focused and you have to, you know, you have to go up there with ‘I’m the better ball player here and I’m going to make sure that I get the job done and if I don’t then the next time I get another chance.’”

It just turned July but Alford is all ready to get things going. He’s excited for the year to start and ready to get out there on the field.

“I was excited to get down here to be with Coach Crane and his staff because there’s a lot of energy, a lot of positive energy down here and I want to be a part of that. Not that there wasn’t in Flatonia, there was plenty of positive energy over there but this is going to be a fun place to be, I’m looking forward to it.”