This is not the way Jerry Croft wanted to go out. The Colquitt County baseball team posted its worst record in 20 years in its final season at Ike Aultman Field, the setting for the Packers only two state baseball championships.

He could have bowed out gracefully in 2003, pocketing the two state titles and remained at job as a teacher at Willie J. Williams Middle School and continued to referee middle school basketball.

But baseball was still in his blood. He loved pulling on his traditional black sleeves and his No. 44 Packers jersey over top.

He had become a fixture in the dugout and the third base coaches box.

And he loved to compete and to win. Nothing compares to winning and he did it 449 times in a career that started when the letter on the front of his cap was an Old English “M,” rather than the interlocking C’s he wore for so many years.

Croft says he and his longtime assistant Keith Croft are going to collaborate on a book about the highs and lows over the years at Ike Aultman Field and other diamonds around Georgia.

When you’ve coached 737 games over three decades, you’ve darn near seen it all — even a player trying to steal second with the bases loaded.

Croft won several coaching awards along the way and was honored for leading his team to state championships.

He was twice named the head coach of the Southwest Georgia team that played in the Georgia Dugout Club’s annual state tournament.

Croft also was an assistant coach for Team Georgia one year, making the trip to Oklahoma.

And while he will not get the chance to coach a game at the new baseball field currently under construction at Packer Park, he will help with some of the final preparations in getting it ready for the 2007 season.

I hope he is called on to throw out the first pitch in the first game at the new park. Perhaps have jersey No. 44 retired in his honor.

Croft acknowledged that he has not always made everyone happy over the years.

In a vocation where one deals in a competitive environment with other people’s children, it is impossible not to have rubbed a few, or more, the wrong way.

I didn’t cover all of the games Jerry Croft coached over the years. I saw a bunch, starting in 1981. And even when I was forced to sit — reluctantly — in the office while games were being played on the road, I knew I’d get a call before deadline.

Win, lose or, on two occasions, draw, he’d make sure the people of Colquitt County knew the score.

He was invariably honest, upbeat and positive about the children in his charge. If there were eight errors in a game, they were team errors. A pitcher might struggle, but he’d be better the next time out.

Jerry Croft didn’t single players out. Except for praise. He always coached like the gentleman he is.