Perry fans were shocked to find out last month that longtime basketball coach Mike Long was not returning to a 41st year of coaching Jayette basketball.  Immediately the attention swung to baseball and questions mounted if he would try to add more wins to his already Iowa High School Hall of Fame worthy numbers.  

“We will see,” smiled the 40 year veteran.  “We need to do something to get more kids going out for baseball.  I’ve started to run into kids saying that they don’t want to go out this year because they’re not going to start and they will come back next season.  Sports don’t work that way.  Athletes can’t take a year off.  They need to stay sharp and continue to improve their skills.  As a result, our numbers are way down.”

Perry has traditionally put together a strong little league presence.  While numbers are trending up in Tball, Rookies, Minors and Majors, the junior league this past season had only 1 Perry team represented.

“For many years, when I first started, Perry would have 6 junior league teams with 15 kids on every team.  They were pumping around 90 kids into the high school program.  I know this year that on the one team they had around 11 or 12 kids and 2 were from Woodward.  Perry has to figure out a way to make sure the kids are going out for the sport.”

Long has mounted over 700 career wins while guiding the Perry baseball program.