Time to smell the roses
ADAMS TWP — George Bradley loves coaching baseball, but he also wanted more time to smell the roses. Something had to give.
A recent trip to Montana helped him make up his mind.
Bradley, who coached Knoch to WPIAL and PIAA Class AAA titles in 2015, handed in his resignation earlier this month after coaching the Knights for six seasons.
“I went out to Montana for my son's wedding in late June and that's when the wheels started turning,” said Bradley, 68, of Adams Township. “I have two sons and a daughter and three grandkids and none of them are close. High school baseball is a year-round thing now and there are things I'd like to do, like visit the grandkids more. My wife and I would like to go to the Pirates' spring training in Florida. I'd like to go back out to Montana and do some hunting. Another thing on my bucket list is get to the College World Series in Omaha. While coaching, those are things I just wasn't able to do. The time was right.”
Though he has much more free time now, stepping down as coach was not an easy decision.
“I'll miss it, especially the day-to-day interaction with the players. It was very difficult for me to write that letter, but I feel fortunate. A lot of times, they kick you out before you're ready to leave.”
Bradley's tenure at Knoch included a 73-49 overall record, including 48-24 in section play. And of course, a WPIAL and state title with a 23-2 mark two springs ago.
“There was no greed on that team,” he said. “If a kid wasn't in the starting lineup, there was a reason for it and he understood it.”
Bradley's last team went 14-8 last spring. The Knights reached the WPIAL semifinals and came up one win shy of qualifying for the state playoffs.
“Some people might say that we had a down year,” said Bradley. “If you compare it to the year before when we won the state title, OK. But if you want to dance with the homecoming queen, you have to go to the dance. In our case, the dance was the WPIAL playoffs and we got to the semifinals. Once you get there, anything can happen.”
Bradley spent years coaching Little League and legion baseball in Mars. He served as an assistant at Shaler and Butler, the latter under former Golden Tornado coach Dave Florie, before taking over Knoch's program in 2011.
“Even before I came to Knoch, I was always intrigued by the number of kids playing baseball in the Saxonburg Area Baseball Association,” he said. “And the community really gets behind it. I thought if we could have a good feeder program, we weren't going to win it all every year, but we'd be competitive. We were, making the (WPIAL) playoffs the last five years.
“The administration was fantastic. Sure, there were battles, but you work them out and you move forward.”
Though not coaching anymore, baseball will remain a part of Bradley's life. He has attended all but one of the Saxonburg legion team's six playoff games. Bradley coached most of the squad's players on the high school team.
“Baseball is a disease,” he said. “Once you get it, there's no getting rid of it. A lot of it is just habit, but I enjoy it.”
