Pride exemplified: Scott City baseball coach Jim May has alma mater back in the final four

Asked to describe his coach, Scott City sophomore Braden Cox smiled and looked off into the distance, searching for the right way to sum up Jim May.

After a brief pause, he settled on just one word: Awesome.

"He's always going to do something you're never going to expect," Cox added after some prompting.

When posed with a question about how he would describe May's relationship with his players, Scott City athletic director Kerry Thompson settled on the same reply.

"Awesome," Thompson said immediately. "He knows when to press the buttons, he knows when to be hard, he knows when not to be so hard, and he knows how to handle kids differently.

"Everybody's different, so you can't handle everybody the same way, and he does a good job of that. He allows them to grow on their own also. He's demanding, but he allows them to grow. He allows them to have fun, but he knows when to press the button where you can't have the fun. He really has a great rapport with our student-athletes."

Senior Tyler Rogers offered up a story to describe May, who serves as the school's head football and baseball coach.

"In football practice we had our defense not doing things right, and I was in there," Rogers said. "He said if anybody wasn't to the football in under a certain amount of time we had up-downs. After that he goes, 'Guys, I'm trying to make you better. I'm not doing this to hurt you or make you in pain, but I'm doing this because I love you.'"

His players love him too, and they're not afraid to say it.

"I used to be much more hard, disciplinarian and over time kids have changed," May said. "I'm a little more relaxed, I like for them to have fun. I talked about it *... before the (state quarterfinal) game, I said, 'Guys, whether or not we win or lose 30 years from now is not as big of a deal as you think it's going to be. It's the experience.' You play this game because you like it, and so I'm a coach that likes for them to have fun, but I also want to win. I know that winning and losing is not all it's about, but if it didn't matter they wouldn't keep score."

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It was past 3 p.m. Thursday as May sat in the dugout at the Scott City baseball field watching his team take batting practice.

The Rams had clinched a trip to the final four a day earlier and were preparing for their state semifinal that will start at 4:30 p.m. Monday. May, who had spent a considerable part of his day ordering hundreds of T-shirts to celebrate the trip, also was preparing for a football meeting later that night.

Leading the baseball team was never an ambition for May. He came to the school to be the football coach in 2009 but added the title of baseball coach a couple years ago when Lance Amick, who eventually became the school's softball coach, stepped down from the position.

The Rams won a district title under May's direction last year and improved on that result this season.

"Did I necessarily want to jump into it? No, because the time commitment is crazy," May said looking out at his team Thursday. "I have a football parent meeting tonight at 6 o'clock, but Coach Amick put a lot into this program, has a lot of passion for Scott City, and I didn't want that to go away. I wanted to make sure somebody took over who cared and cared about the kids and wanted to try to lead it in the right direction. So even though not everybody likes the time constraints in my family, it's fun just the same."

There may be no one who walks the halls at Scott City who cares more about the school's students and teams than May, a 1989 graduate of the school with tremendous pride in its history and reputation.

That's why when Thompson, who serves as an assistant baseball coach, and school administrators approached him about the job, he couldn't say no, no matter how many more hours -- before and after the school day -- it meant for him.

"I think it's a lot for a school district to ask out of one individual," said Thompson, who explained hiring someone not already employed by the school would have difficult because there were no teaching positions open. "That is part of the reason I wanted to jump on and help him out here -- not that I'm a big help, but I understand as athletic director I'm asking an awful lot of him to be a head football coach and a head baseball coach, and I know there is a winter season off, but really there is no offseason anymore. He has weight room stuff with football after football season's over, so I've always felt bad, not just for him but for all my coaches because we ask a lot of our coaches here."

May is one of three coaches, along with Amick and boys basketball coach Mark Dannenmueller, at the school who graduated from Scott City, something that is both an asset and a complication.

"I always tell them all the time, all three of them, that's one thing I've never done is coach at my home school," said Thompson, who has spent many years as a head coach and also was an assistant for Dannenmueller this year. "I think it's really tough to do, but as far as targeting that, I'm not sure we do. I do know our school system does take care of our own, but I don't envy their job because it's got to be pretty tough to do. Coaching's tough enough as it is. It's enjoyable and fun, but it's a tough profession. To do it in the town that you're from and grew up in, that's got to be a little extra tough."

May said the biggest challenge is "knowing a lot of the people, knowing a lot of these guys' dads."

"You have to deal with a lot of people who say you have favoritism because you like somebody or whatever it is or some people who feel like they can say more to you than than they would a normal coach because they know you, but they're just challenges you work through," he said.

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May played college football at Quincey University and Arkansas State, but it wasn't until his playing days caught up with him more than a decade after graduating high school that he decided to finish his degree and become a teacher and coach.

He had to have surgery on both of his Achilles tendons, a gruesome surgery that required lengthening the tendons and "grinding down" his heels to alleviate tension.

He took the long recovery time when he wasn't able to work and turned it into an opportunity to graduate from Southeast Missouri State in 2003.

"I knew that I enjoyed being with kids and working with these guys," he said. "It was just an easy transition because basically I wasn't going to be able to walk for almost a year and a half because I was going to be on crutches, and so I didn't like all that much from being finished [with college], and so I went back and got it knocked out because that's what I decided I wanted to do."

He spent time at Chaffee while student teaching, then worked at Charleston for a year as an assistant football and baseball coach. After that he coached both sports at Perryville before returning to Chaffee to coach football, baseball and track. He returned to Perryville for his first head football coaching job before taking the same position at his alma mater.

"We watched him develop through the years and heard good things about him and really heard good things about him developing kids in the weight room," Thompson said. "So therefore, being from here and he was going up the coaching ranks, we put him on the radar to get him here."

The Rams finished 2-8 in May's first two seasons then followed that up with a pair of 5-5 seasons before going 2-8 again in 2013 as a team full of young players faced a steep learning curve at the varsity level. They finished 4-6 last fall.

"I'm trying to build stability and get something going similar to what it used to be," said May, who added that the team went through a string of coaches in a short time before his arrival.

"I don't think we're there yet, but our school's also is much smaller now than it used to be. When I got here we had 380 students in our high school, and we've got like 230 now. It makes it more challenging. We don't have as many players, and more players have to play multiple sports, but it's fun all the same."

Fun is something May talks about a lot, both when talking to his players and about them, and the members of the baseball team are experts in finding ways to have it.

"This group is pretty crazy," May said. "They've got a personality that's their own. It's unbelievable."

He said he and his assistants considered getting the players matching warmup shirts for the final four but decided "that's really not our style" and that it would be better to let the players be themselves, which includes showing up for games in all manner of dress.

"The dugout's a wild place," May said. "I'm glad I'm not the bench coach, but they have fun. Every once in a while I have to look over there and go, 'Hey, hey, hey, that's too much,' but they want to have fun. That's what it's about. They're 15, 16, 17-year-old kids. They're supposed to have fun. It's not a job, it's not Major League Baseball. I want them to have a good time and remember it when they're 40, not look back on it and say, 'Coach May was hard on us and didn't let us have fun.' I want them to think back and say, 'You know what? We had a good time. We won a lot of games, but we had a good time."

May often adds to the fun environment. The players favorite moments are when he uses their admittedly silly and overused catchphrase "Yeah, baby, this is awesome," which was made popular by sophomore Caden Hilleman.

"He's always trying to joke around with us and say stuff -- be a part of the team, like on the bus ride he's saying stuff that we're saying, and it's hilarious," Cox said.

Cox, who has started in three varsity sports in both his freshman and sophomore seasons, said May's mood changes some during the transition from the football to baseball field.

"He's a little bit different. It's a completely different sport," Cox said. "He's more relaxed in baseball. Not as much screaming, but still, he gets it in.

"He'll tell you what you did wrong then he'll be like, 'Yeah, I still love you, so get the next play.' I've heard that a few times."

According to May, adaptation is essential to being a good coach, regardless of the sport.

"They have their own way, and you've got to find it," he said. "My coaching style can't fit a round peg into a square hole. I try and get them to do what they need to do and learn what they need to learn, but you've got to kind of roll with them a little bit, too."