David Dinger, a fixture in Chattanooga baseball coaching circles for more than two decades, confirmed Thursday that he is stepping down at Lookout Valley.
"I don't know what I'll miss most, but I know I'm going to miss it. I'm out working on the field right now," he said Thursday afternoon. "I would rather miss this, though, than to miss the time with my daughter [Katie]. Lookout Valley baseball has been a big part of my life for a long time. It has been fun and I have enjoyed most every minute of it, but I've had my time. It's her time now."
A fifth-grader, Katie Dinger will be at Lookout Valley Middle School next year and her dad has been told by Lookout Valley principal Lee McDade that he would like him to coach that team next year.
Although his teams never won a state championship, Dinger took Lookout Valley to four state tournaments including the 2006 group. That team went to Friendship Christian as an overwhelming sectional underdog and gained the state with a nine-inning win.
"That may be one of my favorite moments," he said. "We had a bunch of freshmen and sophomores to play a big game and we won a game we weren't expected to win."
Dinger ends his baseball coaching career with a record of 549-259.
His resignation, according to his peers, is a blow to Chattanooga area baseball.
"At the risk of offending the other good coaches in the Chattanooga area and with all due respect to [Baylor's] Gene Etter, who is a hall of famer, David is the best coach, the ideal total package," said current East Hamilton and former Soddy-Daisy coach Steve Garland. "David knows the game. He promotes the game. He is the best at working on facilities. And he's great in the coaching fraternity. The ultimate compliment is that hee has beaten so many people over the years and yet he doesn't have any enemies. He's a guy who always did things the right way."
Garland and Bumper Reese, formerly at Red Bank and now at Signal Mountain, always sought to have a joint practice/scrimmage with Lookout Valley in the preseason.
"Besides Gene Etter and Gene Lively he is without doubt the guy I respect most in the Chattanooga area and possibly the state," Reese said. "He's the classiest guy I ever coached against. I don't know if anybody got as much out of his players. When you played them it was like playing the [Los Angeles] Dodgers. They were always as fundamentally sound a team as you'd play and they had a tremendous work ethic, which is all because of David. If his teams weren't as talented as you they were going to outwork you. If they were more talented than you then you were in trouble because they were still going to outwork you.
"I hate it for the baseball community because we're losing one of the best ever to coach in this city but at the same time I understand. That's his little girl and you only have those once."
Dinger hasn't had time to reflect on his decision or his part in Lookout Valley baseball tradition but he said he did consider himself fortunate.
"The community here takes baseball seriously and Lookout Valley has been a great place to coach baseball. I've worked for great administrators. I've had a lot of help and I've had a lot of great people to work with," he said. "The changes that have taken place weren't just because of me but because of supporters like Janice Boydston and any number of parents. This has been a great situation."