Cougars Look To Begin Anew Under Perez

When veteran Manager Pete Perez came out of retirement and accepted the job at Coconut Creek High late in the off-season last year, time did not allot him to do a lot of things before the first pitch of the season. With a lot of holes to fill, his only option was to recruit from inside the walls of Coconut Creek High.

The response and turnout were both tremendous and Coconut Creek fielded a roster of over twenty players on their varsity team, and also fielded a JV team for the first time in over a decade. But the players struggled through the season in one of the toughest divisions in the state. Coach Perez doesn’t mince words about his team’s shortcomings last year.

“I had six weeks to take a program that was pretty much down and out and it was the toughest year I’ve ever had in my life,” Perez said. “This program last year was held together with crazy glue and duct tape. There was no such thing as a can of corn. Every fly ball was a meatloaf dinner.”

At the end of the season, the work for Coach Perez was just beginning. The good news for Perez was that he now had a full offseason to work with in order to remake the team in his image. As a newcomer to the North Broward area, the first thing Perez did was research on the local baseball scene. What he found was that he had relocated and accepted a job in an area chock full of young talent. According to Perez, the challenge became getting the incoming high-schoolers to commit to Coconut Creek over the area’s powerhouses.

“There’s a lot of talent in the Margate and Coconut Creek community; you’ve just got to go out and get them,” Perez said. “I had to fight through the reputation of the school. That was always a challenge. No one really knows what goes on inside the school. The administration has done a great job academically. We were also under-enrolled so I used that as a tool.”

The crop of young players Perez got to commit to the Cougars is nothing short of impressive. There is Antonio Martinez, a transfer from Douglas. A catcher, Martinez presents spectacular leadership behind the plate and the framing ability to make every pitch look like a strike. At the plate, the stocky catcher presents a good eye and a marvelous knack for staying back on his back foot and hitting line drives.

Next is Abraham Santis-Cruz, a Fort Lauderdale area transfer and sight to behold at the plate. Standing over six feet tall, Santis-Cruz uses his big legs to drive through the zone. He is a prototypical line drive hitter with some hidden pull power. Another newcomer is Michael Thurman, who moved to the area from Tennessee. An infielder and a pitcher affectionately known as Tickle, Thurman presents above-average speed on the base paths and, thanks to a good eye and approach at the plate, the knack to get there. He also possesses an accurate strong arm.

The newcomers join the Cougar returnees, Dalton Kazmarik, Winston Nunez and Jared Miller, all of whom Coach Perez describes as players ready to take the next step.

In the case of Miller, Perez describes him as a guy who can and will do anything he is asked, wherever it may be on the field. Miller is a player Coconut Creek’s opponents can get used to seeing regularly. Perez describes him as the ultimate utility player, a guy he can put at short, third or behind the plate. Miller can also pitch, and Perez said he is the guy who has improved the most over the past year.

When asked who the catalyst of his offense will be this season, there is no hesitation in Perez’s voice.

“Winston Nunez makes our engine go,” Perez said. “He gets on base, he has great plate presence, he can hit anybody. It’s just a matter of discipline and he has grown up so much from last year to this year. I don’t see any problem with him playing baseball at the next level at all. He’s our horse.”

In addition to Kazmarik, Nunez, and Miller, the Cougars have one more returnee, but he isn’t returning as a player. He is returning for his second year as a coach. Assistant coach Carl McKinney graduated from Coconut Creek High in 2013 and returned last year to provide his knowledge and expertise of the program to a then first-year skipper.

“I came back because I knew we were getting a new coach,” McKinney said. “I knew he was from Miami and not really from around this area. I figured I could give him a hand.”

Perez describes McKinney’s contributions last year as invaluable. He thinks his relationship with McKinney will only grow stronger this season.

“He was my seeing eye dog. I put a leash on him and just said ‘lead me’,” Perez said. “I didn’t know anybody or anything. But he was a huge help and now that he is back and we have more familiarity its just a more comfortable feeling.”

Out of all of the players on Coconut Creek’s roster this year, none of them are seniors. Coach Perez wouldn’t have it any other way. This will give his guys a great opportunity to grow together, and they are the foundation of this program now. Although he knows the Cougars are a few steps away from seriously competing in a stacked district he relishes in the opportunity his young players will get to play against some of South Florida’s biggest powerhouse teams

“I think getting the opportunity to play in what I call the toughest division in the country when you have to deal with McCarthy, Cardinal Gibbons, and American Heritage, it’s a great showcase for these kids to show that they can play,” said Perez. “It should be really fun this year. We’re going to be competitive and that’s the most important thing.”

Along with re-building most of the roster, Perez has also taken it upon himself to re-build and re-brand everything surrounding the team as well. Last year, with the little time that he had, Perez converted an old storage shed behind the dugout into a player clubhouse. This year, he has finished building the clubhouse. Each player now has his own locker, marked with a name plate. Players will be able to congregate in the clubhouse before and after games and practices. The boons of the clubhouse began to show last year and will continue to do so this year.

“In a normal life, these kids would probably never hang out together,” Perez said. “Now they are all part of a clique. Now they are part of something.”

Coach McKinney echoes Coach Perez’s sentiments about team camaraderie and praises the way Perez has managed to build it.

“Before, we tried to get them to but now they actually do it,” McKinney said.” “Now they’re all like a little clique. “They do stuff together other places, not just at school or on the baseball diamond. That has really helped build team chemistry.”

According to Perez, if his players have a place they are proud to play at and call a second home, they will be more likely to succeed not only on the field but in life as well.

“It’s something that’s necessary because this is their home away from home,” Perez said. “It also puts my mind at ease knowing where they are what they are doing. I don’t promise parents that their kid is going to play. My only promise to parents has been that I will take care of your kid. I take that very seriously. I want to know where the kids are at, I want to know that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, not what they’re not supposed to be doing.”

Perez believes all of his hard work on tangible things this offseason and all of the extra time he has spent at the field and in the office working on improvements have all been noticed by his squad. Because of them, they are all the more eager to give Perez back the respect he has earned from them. But they also haven’t failed to let their personalities show with a bit of good natured humor.

“One thing about being a baseball player is you are the world’s biggest practical joke,” Perez said. “These kids come here, they eat lunch in the clubhouse, and they’ll crack jokes on each other. But this is the way they are; 99% of these kids do what they are told. They come here at 2:45 and they’re on the field at 3:00. I don’t tell them to do this. They just understand that this is what they have to do.”

Judging by the way they talk to and address their Manager, and the way they speak in such high regard of him, Perez’s beliefs regarding the respect the team has for everything he has done in such a short time are confirmed to be true.

“He’s always here when we need him,” said Nunez. “He’s here at 10:00 in the morning, and he’s fixed the field for us. He’s a great guy.”

As a reward for giving 150% to his players, Antonio Martinez and the rest of the Cougars’ 2015 squad plan on giving the same back to him on the field this season. But they also understand that, although their skipper is a great motivator, when it comes to growth, some of the responsibility falls solely on the players.

“He’s not the one that always has to motivate us; we also have to motivate ourselves,” Martinez said. “We always want to push ourselves to do better and always keep it at a high level, never give up, and always bring in more than 100% at all times.”

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