Etter makes 700 club

Gene Etter has joined the 700 club.

The Baylor baseball coach, who had open-heart surgery in 2002 and a hip replacement in 2001, has been described as eccentric and as a pioneer. But each of his peers is quick to mention his uncanny ability to win and his gentleman’s decorum.

Etter earned his 700th win in his 1,000th game as a high school coach a couple of weeks ago when his Red Raiders beat South Cobb. He is the winningest baseball coach in the Chattanooga area, passing former Ooltewah and Central coach Gene Lively last year, and is among the top five in the state.

“Earlier in my career it was a big thing to me,” said Etter, who in his 34th year was embarrassed that someone found out he had 700 wins. “I don’t think about milestones until the end of the season, and then it’s more those of the team or players on our team.”

One area coach recalled Etter’s speech from two years ago when he was inducted into the Tennessee Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. In that speech, according to one coach, Etter noted that some had said baseball wasn’t rocket science and that he disagreed.

“He said that it could be like rocket science and that he was a rocket scientist,” Soddy-Daisy coach Steve Garland said. “He left his fellow coaches with a thought about how analyzing the intricate details of the game could yield more victories. His speech was both humorous and memorable.”

Etter referred to his mindset as one of calculations.

“Baseball is about percentages, and some have figured up percentages when it might not in actuality be doing the best thing,” he said. “You calculate what’s the best percentage. After coaching this long, you have a feel for what may be the best thing to do in certain situations. Percentages and experience are tied together.”

A football and baseball player at the University of Tennessee, Etter is a son of the late E.B. “Red” Etter, one of the state’s winningest football coaches — another who was recognized for his ability to analyze games, opponents and opportunities.

Gene Etter has numerous videotapes of pro hitters’ swings, which he has broken down frame-by-frame. He has every pitch charted and clocked during games so he knows how many throws each pitcher has made during a game and how much velocity he has.

“I was fortunate to get to work with Coach Tom Weathers for four years,” Garland said, “and I can’t begin to count the times he referenced Coach (Red) Etter. I’m too young to have known the elder Coach Etter, but it sounds like Gene inherited the class and the mental side of athletics based on things I heard from Coach Weathers.”

Etter was among the first to figure out that he could emulate a pitcher with a 90 mph fastball by moving closer to the plate to throw, based on distance and how fast his practice pitcher could throw. Of course, his teams always have been able to hit.

“He has stacks of pictures of major leaguers at point of contact and at the release of a pitch,” said McCallie coach and former Etter assistant Chris Richardson. “Where people teach theories — hit the top of ball, swing down, that type of thing — he teaches actualities: ‘Why not hit center of ball and hit it as hard as you can?’ He has done all this research on how people in the big leagues do it, and that’s how Baylor does it.

“There have been programs that have been good for 8-10 years, but Baylor has been good since the mid-’70s when I was in high school. There have been a lot of kids and a lot of different assistant coaches, but Baylor has consistently won and that’s a credit to him.”

Etter has been able to adapt his coaching philosophy to the type talent he had. He’s had bangers and bunters, and he has put sent more than 100 players on to the college ranks, including current pros Wes Hodges (Indians) and Kane Simmons (Rockies) who are working their way up through the minors.

“My first year at Baylor was 1992,” Richardson said. “They had three guys that hit better than .500, and eight of the nine starters hit more than .400. All of them went on to play college ball.

“From the mid-’90s to the late ’90s, he had a lot of speed and he changed from the three-run homer to more bunts and steals. The team he has now is a combination of those things. But his philosophy is always evolving. From what I have seen, he has changed to keep up or stay ahead, and more importantly his coaching has been based on what his team did best. He has had good players, but he has gotten the most out of them.”

Eddie Etter, who married Gene at home plate in Arlington, Texas, when he was playing minor league baseball, knows him better than anyone, including other coaches and assistants. Known at one time for having no peer at stealing opposing coaches’ signals, she has often been called a coach in the stands and likely is Gene’s most solid adviser.

“He is a mild-mannered genius,” she said. “I really believe he knows the game and that he tries to instill that in his players. He is always about the game and the guys playing the game to the best of their abilities. He’s an analyst.”

And he’s a winner — 700 times over.