New Coach Positions Boynton Beach For Success

Stephen Kaczmarek works out with the team earlier this week.

John Drouin knows what it takes to be a winner. Now the former Summit Christian coach is taking the recipe for success he used at the school to turn things around at Boynton Beach.

Drouin took over as manager this year with that goal of returning Boynton back to prosperity. The program reached the state semifinals in 2003 under Brian Joros but has since fallen off the baseball map.

So far at Boynton, Drouin has received nothing but support.

“I love it here. There’s great support here,” Drouin said. “The principal is phenomenal. The AD is great. The assistant principal is great. Everyone is here to help you.”

Drouin led Summit to the regional playoffs from 2009 to 2012. The Saints won a state title in 2011. He left the school this year over uncertainty of it closing. He said a Boynton Beach parent emailed him asking him if he’d be interested in applying for the position at Boynton.

When Drouin arrived at Boynton, he discovered that the program not only lacked necessary supplies and equipment, the field needed work as well. So he and the team started spending hours and hours making the necessary improvements. They redid the sod and bases, put in new clay and built a new pitchers mound. Car washes, donations and Drouin’s own money are paying for the new supplies and equipment. Drouin said everything will be in place for the spring season.

“I knew it would be a building process, which I enjoy doing, taking young kids and trying to develop them and build a program,” Drouin said. “It’s a complete overhaul. We’re redoing the field. We’re working every day, every weekend, every Saturday, every Sunday we’re working on the field to get it up to snuff. The kids are really good about that.”

Part of the process, Drouin said, is convincing the kids that live in Boynton’s school district to stay in their school. What will help to attract and keep players, Drouin believes, is not only word of mouth but actual success on the field.

“It makes you feel good,” he said. “When you look good, you feel good. when you feel good, you play good. When you play good, you win. It’s an old Dallas Cowboy, Tom Landry philosophy. When the public comes in, they say ‘Wow, this is a nice facility, it’s a nice school.’ They start to get a different idea of what our program is about and what our school is about.”

Drouin feels the team just needs to get the word out, and once they do and also as they produce, they’ll ultimately be fine. He is hoping the improvements to the field and the right equipment will help the team be successful.

“I am so grateful for [the improvements],” senior third baseman Luis Cepeda said. “Our field wasn’t the best of fields, but what we have now is really good. That boosts morale. We like the changes.”

From his past coaching experience, Drouin knows a big component for success is eating, drinking and sleeping baseball year-round. He said at Summit Christian, the team worked 365 days a year, playing in the summer and fall in addition to a lot of workout time. He said players took advantage of extra practice time.

“Monday through Sunday, those kids came up on their own,” Drouin said. “They hit, they ran and they were hungry. You have to put the time in. You have to put the hours in. You have to get the repetitions in. You can’t miss practice. When you come to practice, you have to work. You can’t stand around for three hours. You’re better off working hard for an hour and going home. You have to get your work in and you’ve gotta produce and you have to want it. Your parents can’t do it for you.”

Ian Acevedo lifts during a team workout session earlier this week.

In addition to playing in the fall, one of the things Drouin implemented this year at Boynton was a workout program. When High School Baseball Network visited the team Tuesday, the players were doing just that as heavy rain kept them off the field.

Victor Hughes, a senior catcher who is going into his fourth year on the team, said the fall workouts are necessary and will play a role in being successful come spring.

“I always thought weight lifting was important, using the right muscles for intimidation,” Hughes said. “The other team sees we’re in shape. It’s a mental thing.”

Cepeda agrees the workouts are making a difference.

“I feel it will be beneficial because teams do lose steam during the seventh inning, so when it hits the seventh inning, we’ll still be able to play like it was the first inning.”

Hughes and Cepeda are two players who are familiar with how Drouin runs things. Hughes played for one of Drouin’s assistants on a summer team, and Cepeda said Drouin “knows my whole family” as he coached his cousin two years ago at Summit.

Both said Drouin has brought to Boynton an attitude of get it done, work hard and win. It’s been a mental boost for the team as it welcomes some new faces this year in addition to Drouin.

“It’s a bit of a morale change,” Cepeda said. “There’s a lot of new kids, so we’re bringing more into the family. Things are less tense.”

Hughes said having former manager Evan D’Angelo staying on as assistant gives the team that much more experience.

“We have two coaches who know what they’re talking about,” Drouin said. “It feels like we’re going to have a good year.”

Hughes is among the players Drouin is counting on to produce at the plate this year. Other players who are expected to be among the leaders in hitting are returners Luis Acevedo, Kyle Tedesco, Derrick Lewandowski, Christian Perez, Erik Dietrick, Stephen Kaczmarek and Malik Horne.

“We need everybody to hit,” Drouin said. “We need everybody to produce to compete. We can’t have any weak links in the chain. We have to be strong all the way through. And they’re working. After I leave practice, some of these kids stay for an hour on their own and hit and throw and run everyday.”

Brandon McCabe, a transfer from Virginia, will join the pitching staff that also will includes Tedesco, Hughes, Cepeda, Perez and Angel Matos.

The team is working this fall to tighten up in the infield to cut down on a big factor that hurt it last year: errors.

Boynton Beach players are spending a lot of time on working out this fall to build stamina for the spring.

Another piece in place for success this year is cohesivness.

“We’re like brothers, kind of like the football team was,” Hughes said. “They had a pretty good season. We have team chemistry. Since I was a freshman, we’ve all been close to each other.”

Cepeda said last year everybody was new and didn’t know each other, so the chemistry wasn’t there as much.

“So now we know each other. Everybody gets along. There’s no egos,” he said.

Drouin said he’s pleased to have a group of players like he does working for each other.

“The kids are getting along great,” he said. “The new kids that are coming are fitting in. It’s a happy group. Everybody’s laughing, everybody’s having fun. I’m very excited about this program. They support each other. They give each other rides. They share equipment. They share lunch. They share everything together. It’s a good group of kids. I like them. They’re the types of things you just can’t teach. Those are the little intangibles that build a team, the camaraderie, the looking out for each other, the helping each other, the picking each other up when you’re down, when you’re hurt, when you’re depressed. Kids are emotional like everybody else. They’re up and down.”

Drouin said he has no plans to leave Boynton and said he’ll be retiring when he does so. He knows he has something good here, and he’s in it for the long haul.

“People laughed about Boynton Beach High School baseball for the past five or six years and made fun of the program, but they’re not going to make fun of us anymore,” Drouin said. “We’re going to change that philosophy. Hopefully that’ll change. Kids will want to come to you.”

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