BOILING SPRINGS, SC - For Boiling Springs basketball fans it doesn't seem that long ago that Zach Baldinelli was scoring his 1,000th career point for the Bulldogs program, in fact the four-year anniversary of that mark just passed by, but four years later he now sits as the lead assistant for the boys' basketball program and the school's liaison to the youth leagues.
While the ascension to being an assistant basketball coach for a 5A program may seem like a quick one to some people, if you've ever met Baldinelli, you know this is something he has been working towards since his high school playing days. "This place is home and the second I took off my jersey at Limestone I knew exactly where I wanted to be to start my coaching career," said Baldinelli. "When I made the choice to get into coaching, I wanted to come back here and do things that have never been done before at this school on the basketball court. For me to get that opportunity from Mr. McQuigg, Coach Moxie, and our new basketball coach Coach Martin it's just everything I dreamed of and I'm overly excited about being back." He said that the opportunity to get to give back to the program that built him into the player he became and to now help do that same thing for the next generation of Bulldogs is special to him. "It's fantastic to get to work with this group of kids every day and I hope they all skyrocket past the accomplishments that I made when I was here," said Baldinelli. "I was once these guys looking to play for the varsity team and winning region and state championships. I hope that I can just help them a little bit to accomplish those goals that they have set for themselves as players and as a team." With some situations of having a first-year head coach coming in, some coaches wouldn't be very receptive of having a young coach with a desire to build a program on their staff, but Baldinelli said that Coach Martin has been nothing but welcoming and encouraging to him. "Coach Martin is the best person to work for and it's just hard to explain why," said Baldinelli. "He has been nothing but receptive of the things I want to do. From the second I've been here he has never made me feel like an assistant coach but the other head coach because he lets me be me. The trust and belief he places in me motivates me every day. The way this started he wasn't able to get here until the summer so he essentially entrusted me to coach the team this spring and the early part of the summer, basically trusting me to lay the foundation of what he wants to accomplish. As a 22-year-old that means a lot to me. I would never want to work for anyone else because we go together so well. I can't wait for the people in the community to get to meet Coach Martin and find out how much he cares about the community and this team." Baldinelli isn't the only familiar face that will be assisting the Bulldogs coaching staff this year and he has been a key part in getting old players back to help with the program. "For me it's about tradition and one of the first guys we were able to get back was Mikail Coleman, who is here on staff as well," said Baldinelli. "I started a Facebook group for our old players from the past so that the former Bulldogs know everything we're doing and have an open invite to come back to be a part of anything we're doing. We now have alumni coming back to be part of practices which is huge that our guys get to know those guys, guys like Wally Mathis, Jay Free, Mason Sanders, and all the legends that came before them. It gives them people to aspire to be and shows them there are people that care about their success and the success of the program." He says that the interaction that they have seen from former players with the team so far in practices has been unreal. "The alumni we've had back so far at practice so far have been very interactive," said Baldinelli. "After every practice we have those guys speak to the team and they always give fantastic advice to the guys and the team in general. We want to keep getting more alumni around. Our alumni and kids need to have relationships because it's what good programs do and it's part of building that tradition." Just working with the basketball program and the alumni base hasn't been his only position this year as he has also been tasked with working with local youth leagues to get them more involved with the high school and working on getting young players used to what the expectations will be as future Bulldogs. "It has been great working with the youth leagues," said Baldinelli. "As far as youth football we had kids playing up here three to four nights a week and now we're going to have youth basketball playing here this winter, for what I think is the first time ever. We're also going to have clinics every Saturday for all the youth for free in Boiling Springs to get hands on instruction from the coaching staff which we're hoping will just build our youth programs and high school programs into the future." The hard work that Baldinelli is putting in comes from the love for this community has been built on the relationships he started from a young kid and kept building on through his playing career. "The big thing for me is Boiling Springs is home and somewhere becomes home through the relationships you build there," said Baldinelli. "The relationships I've built here is everything. From the administration to meeting my best friends here or as a kid watching the guys play I looked up to like Mason Sanders along with Jared and Jordan Wallace. Or as a freshman first putting that jersey on beside players like Josh Ellmore and Kyle Littlejohn who were great players. I feel like this community is one big family and I'm blessed to have been a part of it since I was a kid and now giving back as a coach." Comments are closed.
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