Interview With Head Baseball Coach Sonny Hansley – Part 1 of 3

We broke the news that Western Head Coach Sonny Hansley was retiring after the 2011 season. Here we are releasing Coach Hansley’s sit-down interview with BrowardHighSchoolBaseball.com’s editor, and former Hansley player at Nova Southeastern, Anthony Uttariello.

Coach Hansley coached for more than 40 years and compiled a 570-377 record as a head coach at the college and high school level in Broward County over 27 of those years. He has head coached at Nova Southestern University, Plantation High School, and Western High School. He was inducted into the Nova Southeastern Hall of Fame in 2007.

Part 1 of 3 – Interview with Coach Sonny Hansley

Anthony: How difficult was to make the decision to retire?

Coach Hansley: Making the decision really wasn’t that difficult. Following through with it has been a little bit emotional. Especially with the kids, and like I told my wife yesterday, there’s an empty feeling, but it’s not an empty feeling I want to change what I decided to do. I’ll fill the void with something. I just need to figure out what that is going to be. You know that part was hard, I’ve been doing this for a long, long time, and it becomes a part of you.

Anthony: How did your wife react when you told her you were walking away, or is it something that you’ve been discussing throughout?
Coach Hansley: It’s my decision you know, and the fact that we had talked about moving and things like that, and she just said, “Are you sure?” Same thing with my son, even up to this week they wanted to know, “Are you sure?”

Anthony: Are you sure?

Coach Hansley: I’m sure.

Anthony: No doubts in your head?

Coach Hansley: Just the empty feeling you know, but no doubts.

Anthony: Is there any thoughts that somewhere down the road you may return, even if not in a head coaching job, but as an assistant in baseball?

Coach Hansley: Yeah, I still have my business. When I left Nova, I started my own business, with the clinics and camps and private instruction, so at some point the business is still active, and I may start doing some of that next year. When I retire I think that has been the plan all along to still stay in baseball in some capacity.

Anthony: Outside of Baseball, How do you plan on spending all the free time you have now?

Coach Hansley: Well, I’m happy, I’m back in the gym, I do that religiously; get myself back in the shape I want to be in. I golf, and I want to get better at that, plus I want to spend some more time with my wife, for giving me the flexibility to do what I’ve done for so long. You know we have been married now for 40 years, so for 40 years she’s kept the home fires burning. I was fortunate to have a daughter in athletics and I coached her a little bit when she was playing softball. And then obviously Kenny, him following his father’s career in baseball was kind of neat.

Anthony: What was it that fueled you to coach all these years?

Coach Hansley: That is an interesting question, and sometimes my wife asks me that question too and I say it was the ability to communicate “My Level” of the game to other people and try to get them to appreciate what baseball really is. And the fact that nobody is indispensible, I would tell my players that all the time, you know they’re going to come and go and I’m going to come and go, but when you’re playing, you have to have a feel for the game that there is something bigger than we are. I think that was one thing I took away from the game.

In High School I played with great players, in college I played with great players. Then I went back to coaching in high school again, in Massachusetts, we had great players there. It was always an honor for me to be able to coach kids, and be part of what they are doing.

Now, did we reach all of them, obviously not, you can’t, but you can make a mark on them and then over the years just like you, I didn’t know. Our relationship was very short, but you always think, do we actually make an impression on kids? And I think, ‘I’m hoping that we did.’ Most of the time the players don’t even realize it until they get older. Over the years we’ve had kids come back and say thank you, and you know that’s the biggest part.

You know I had great coaches in high school, a guy that I played for in High School, football, basketball, and baseball, you know he was a legend, and he coached into his late 60’s and there’s a guy up there now, in his 70’s and still coaching, so I always thought I could be like them, but at this point I’ve just run out of energy.

Anthony: Speaking of some of the ex-players, you did touch on the fact that a lot of us are coaching or were coaching, and a lot of people from your tree are coaching now. Does that give you proof that what you were doing made an impression that so many people followed what you were teaching, and are you now teaching the same things as 20, 30 years ago?

Coach Hansley: I think so. It’s interesting you know when you’re coaching and you like to think that a lot of the things you are saying are sinking in, but you’re not sure. The proof is when they are out coaching and you see them doing the same things or their using same philosophy and talking about the same things.

An ex-player of mine called me up a few weeks ago and he said he was teaching his son how to hit, and he’s using all the things that we taught. He was at Nova, and some of those things we also taught here (Western), and in my private instruction and they’re not my drills, I didn’t create them all. Baseball coaches steal from other people and add our own philosophies and our own words to it. It was nice when he said “Coach, I’m using your methods for teaching hitting.” I think that’s pretty neat.

Anthony: What are some of the memories you have spanning your forty years in coaching? Start with college and then hit some of the high school memories?

Coach Hansley: Well, in College it’s obviously a different animal, because your able to recruit. You’re playing a really high level and to be able to build a program at Nova from scratch, obviously there was nothing there when we started, we played at an old high school field. As it started to grow you realize the facility that is there now, you know they have added some things, but basically the facility itself is exactly the way it was. That brought a lot of pride to all of us that were involved with the growth because now people looked at our program and said we were for real. Before, we were playing out on a field with chicken wire fence or whatever.

Then the university really emphasized baseball and put money into the program, that was really fun, and playing against our conference, as you know, was really a tough task. It would certainly measure up to most Division I conferences in the country.

And so playing and winning some conference championships and then going to regional’s and stuff that was a lot of fun, real exciting.

We’ve had that same thing here at Western, nothing has changed as far as our preparation, practice organization and standard things that we did at Nova, Plantation, and we’ve done here. I think you have to have a plan, organize it and then go through with it, in order to have any type of success. Those types of things are important and I learned from some really good coaches, so I was able to pick their brains. It’s been fun.

Anthony: Speaking of coaches, is there any that stand out that you have worked along side over the years, and has there been special bonds built that you really appreciated?

Coach Hansley: Well there’s a guy up in Mass., his name is Dan Delchino. It was back in the 80’s, he was National Coach of the Year. He’s been in a high school in that community since 1963 and he still coaches, since 1963, he was the JV coach when I came up in high school, but I never got to play for him because another high school opened up. He was just a great coach and we would sit and talk, hash out ideas, you know and he was a great hitting guy, you know so we would talk about those things.

Bobby Deutschman (Broward College), he’s one of my former players but he is also a really, really great baseball guy. Al Berry, GM of the Kansas City Royals and is now with the Red Sox, he was my pitching coach and we would share ideas. Now my players have really shed a lot of light, or are giving me a lot of information after they got out of pro ball, and you know Felipe Suarez, he is another one. You can’t find a better pitching guy than him in this area. When our kids say they want a pitching guy, we refer the kids to Felipe.

Click Here to Read Part 2 of this Interview
Click Here to Read Part 3 of this Interview

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