Hernando assistant tapped as coach

By DAVID MURPHY
Published September 16, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - Brent Gaustad's search for a new baseball coach was an easy one.

He almost didn't have a choice.

As the Hernando athletic director spoke with potential candidates over the past week, he routinely heard them pass on the opportunity.

"They said, 'If Donnie is in the running, then take my name out,' " Gaustad said.

Donnie, of course, is long-time assistant coach and former Hernando star Donnie Whitehead. And on Thursday night, he officially accepted Gaustad's offer to become the Leopards' new coach.

The move is one most people in the county expected when long-time coach Tim Sims elected to step down last week to focus on his family and his business. Even former Hernando Christian coach Mike Ellison, the other person in the running for the job, told Gaustad that Whitehead "deserved it."

Whitehead, who graduated from Hernando in 1991, started coaching with the Leopards soon after his playing career at Saint Leo ended. He officially became an assistant for Sims in 1996, but has always been a familiar face in county baseball circles.

"When I graduated in 1991, if you had told me that 15 years down the road I'd be head coach at Hernando, I'd would've said you were crazy," Whitehead said.

But after helping out with the Leopards' JV program while injured in college, Whitehead changed that line of thinking.

"I had as much fun coaching as playing," he said.

[Last modified September 16, 2006, 02:42:49]