With about 10 days in his new role as Louisburg College’s head baseball coach, William Hardin has hit the ground running, with recruitment in full swing, meeting current players and getting ready for the upcoming season.

But like they say, it’s not work if you love what you do.

“I do care deeply about Louisburg baseball and Louisburg College,” Hardin said on Thursday’s SportsTalk segment with WIZS’s Scout Hughes and George Hoyle.

And now, he’s coaching at the very school that gave him so much as a young junior college athlete who headed off to Elon College (before it became a university) and then settled into a coaching and teaching career at the high school and college levels.

His coach at Louisburg was the venerable Russ Frazier, and Hardin said he’s had many conversations with his former coach since he took the job.

When Coach calls, Hardin says he drops whatever he’s doing.

“It’s like two people taking who have best friends forever,” Hardin said. “All the advice he gives me, I take it.”

Another role model who helped shape Hardin as a coach is longtime AD at Greensboro’s Page High School – and fellow Elon ballplayer Rusty Lee.

Hardin said he learned the value of being proactive from Lee, so when someone calls him to share the name of a possible recruit, Hardin calls. Right then.

“My job is to get on the phone right then and there, not wait a week,” he said.

He’s hitting the recruiting pretty hard now, and he said he has until mid-August to “say yes to as many quality players as we possibly can.”

He said he’s ready to build on the success that previous head coach Blake Herring had with the Hurricanes, and elevate the program a little bit in the process and return to national relevance.

One way to do that is through hard work. Another way is by showing players you’re passionate about your school, your program and your players.

“I do have a lot of passion,” Hardin said. Recruits have remarked about seeing and feeling that passion, which tells Hardin he’s doing the right thing and doing it the right way.

“The day I met the players, I had probably five or six alumni with me who showed up,” Hardin said, which created a “buzz” among current players and in the Louisburg fanbase and alums.

There are some good players coming back for the upcoming season, and Hardin said right now, he’s looking for arms.

“The more arms we get, the more chance that we can win those weekend series,” he explained. He said he’s going to look at those weekend series as if they’re the conference tournament. “We want to win that two out of three, we want to sweep,” so the team can develop that mindset of playing baseball hard for a short period of time.

A pitcher’s speed is great, but Hardin said there’s a place in the lineup for pitchers who can provide long relief, short relief  – players he can put on the mound for specific tasks.

“We’re looking for arms that come in and get people out,” he explained. “It’s about hitting your spots and mixing your pitches…throwing off the timing and the balance of the hitter – that’s what it’s all about.”

He’s doing all the things a college head coach needs to do, at a dizzying pace – networking, recruiting, learning, planning and strategizing.

“That’s something I’ve been eager to do all my life, is to be a college coach,” Hardin said. “But there’s only one place I really wanted to be and that’s Louisburg College and that is the truth.”

To be able to coach at the school that gave him his start that included playing college baseball and a career as a coach is not something Hardin takes for granted.

“It changed my entire life, being able to go to school there,” he said.“Everything I have is attributed to Louisburg College.”

He said he’s livin’ the dream right now – a great family, a job he loves at a school that he loves.

CLICK PLAY!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

High School Baseball Playoffs

NCHSAA

4A – State Championship Series – Best of 3

Game 1

• Bunn 3 Burns 2

Game 2

• Bunn 7 Burns 5

Congratulations to the Bunn Wildcats on winning the 4A Baseball State Championship!