McCranie likes what he sees so far

Published 10:31 pm Saturday, June 24, 2006

MOULTRIE — It has been somewhat difficult for Eric McCranie to get a handle on what his first Colquitt County High baseball team will look like when it opens the 2007 season at new Packer Park next season.

The team has played some summer league games in the two weeks since the former Packer was named to succeed Jerry Croft, his former coach and the leader of the Colquitt County High program for 30 years.

But a couple Packers — veterans Carter Jones and Andrew Wallace — have been playing American Legion baseball and several others have missed for various reasons.

But he has seen enough to be encouraged about next season.

“I’m still trying to put names with faces,” McCranie said before the Colquitt County played junior varsity and varsity summer games at Ike Aultman Field on Saturday. “And we’re short five or six guys.

“But I like what I’ve seen so far.”

Not since 1976 has a Packer baseball team had anyone but Croft in the dugout leading the team.

But after Croft retired following the 2006 season with a record of 449-286-2, the Colquitt County Board of Education turned one of his former players to replace him.

McCranie had a fine career as an outfielder for the Packers, batting .306 in 1987 with a home run and five RBIs and .325 as a senior the next season with another homer, 15 runs batted in and 15 stolen bases.

He also was an outstanding football player for the Packers, playing linebacker as a junior then starting at center as a senior in 1987.

Despite being named to the All-Region second team, McCranie did not draw much interest from baseball coaches at the next level.

But he walked on at South Georgia College and hit .333 as a freshman and earned a scholarship.After a second impressive season in Douglas, he went on to play at West Georgia in 1991 and 1992.

The next two seasons, McCranie was an assistant coach at West Georga and then spent three seasons as an assistant at Georgia College and State University.

He also was an assistant coach for three seasons in summer college leagues in New York and Virginia and was on the staff of the team that won the 1997 Shenandoah Valley Baseball League championship.

In 1998, he went to work at Clarke Central High in Athens, serving as the head ninth-grade football coach that fall and taking over as head baseball coach in the spring of 1999.

McCranie was the Gladiators head coach for seven seasons 1999-2005, posting a record of 109-72. He led Clarke Central to the state playoffs that season, and in 2001 the Gladiators won the Region 8-AAAA championship for the first time in mor than 10 years.

Clarke Central advanced to the Elite Eight in the state playoffs in both 2001 and 2002. McCranie was named the Region 8-AAAAA and the Northeast Georgia Coach of the Year in 2001.

Also to his credit is having 20 of his former players play college baseball.

But when his wife Rochelle was able to find a better job in South Georgia last year, McCranie resigned and the family moved to Moultrie.

He was eager to return to coaching and quickly applied when Croft retired.

McCranie said he is unlikely to bring in any new assistant coaches before next season.

Marlon Daniels and Will Stuckey are expected to join him in the dugout.

Longtime Packers assistant coach Keith Croft has resigned and is furthering his education, McCranie said.

Craig Pitts and Greg Tillery are likely to continue handling the B-team and Daniel Dalton will again work with the ninth-graders.

McCranie is inheriting a program that won the Class AAAAA state championship in 2003, but is only a combined 33-44-1 in the three years since.

The Packers were 8-17-1 last year, posting the program’s fewest victories since McCranie’s junior season in 1987 when the Packers went 7-12-1.

One of Colquitt County’s residents most pleased to see McCranie return to take over the baseball program is his father Marshall McCranie, a longtime Colquitt County High athletic booster.

“He calls me daily,” Eric McCranie said, chuckling.

Two of Marshall McCranie’s former Packer sons are now back living in Colquitt County.

Oldest son John, who played football and baseball for Colquitt County, works for the U.S. Geological Survey and works out of Tifton.

Youngest son Christopher, who also played baseball and football at the University of Georgia, is a lawyer working for a land development company in Jacksonville, Fla.

All would like nothing better than for the Colquitt County High baseball team to return to form that helped it earn Final Four appearances in 1996 and 1998 and state championships in 1997 and 2003 under Jerry Croft.

“The kids are already working hard,” the new coach said. “We’re trying to get back to where we need to be.”