New Varsity Baseball Coach for the Saxons

This 2017 Baseball season, the Saxons will be welcoming a new head varsity baseball coach to the staff. Max Jesse Price has been an assistant coach and English teacher at North for the past three years. Although Price will be coaching at South, he will continue teaching English at North. He is a North Alumni, where he was coached by the current head coach, Chris Lee.
“It’s been really fun to coach with him at North over the past three years,” Price said.
Price continued to play baseball after high school at Pacific University. He began his coaching career with Glencoe’s Freshman baseball team before returning back to his roots. This season, Price had no intention of leaving North and its team, but he says that his wife encouraged him to apply for the head coaching job at South, and achieve his goal of being a head coach at the 6A level.
Overall, Price is impressed by the atmosphere and relationship that South has created around its students and staff.
“Over the course of the hiring process, every coach and teacher I spoke with at South kept using the same word to describe the Saxon community: ‘family’. I don’t take that word lightly,” Price said.
As an experienced player himself, Price believes that the driving goal for the Saxon coaching staff is to prepare every player to be able to play baseball in college by the end of their senior season. He believes that an effective way to do this is to allow the player to feel what they are doing without the coach picking at every little detail of the player’s mechanics and form.
“Research has shown us that the less a coach talks about technique, and the more the player feels it for himself, the better the player will become,” Price said.
Together with his coaching staff, Price is confident that they can create a healthy, competitive atmosphere for the Saxon athletes.
“The biggest thing I can do is to remove players’ fear of failure and to make practice as challenging as possible. Removing the fear of failure, to me, is a huge component of being successful,” Price said.
The Saxons’ first 6A baseball game with Price as a head coach was on March 13 against Sheldon on Gilmore Field. The Saxons will face the West Albany Bulldogs for their first Greater Valley Conference game on April 4, at home on Gilmore Field.