Beagles to focus on administration at Heritage
Heritage High School will have a new head baseball coach for the 2024 season after Eric Beagles announced to his team this past Monday that he was relinquishing the Generals’ program to concentrate on his ever-expanding duties and responsibilities as an assistant principal at the school.
“Pretty much every school has a baseball team, but at some schools it’s known and viewed as a baseball program and that’s what we’ve been able to successfully establish here at Heritage,” he said.
Beagles was one of the first coaches hired at Heritage prior to the school opening its doors in 2008. He was an assistant at Ringgold for four seasons under the legendary Bill Womack and he enjoyed several successful seasons as skipper of the Tigers before heading to the other side of the city.
An alum of LFO who also played and was a team captain at Cleveland State before moving on to The Master’s College in California, Beagles has over 400 career head coaching wins and helped lead the Generals to 11 playoff appearances since 2011, including one this past season.
His 2017 team won a school-record 31 games (31-9) and the Generals enjoyed four seasons on 20 or more victories.
He also began the Generals’ traditions of military appreciation and Military Appreciation Days at the ballpark, along with the team’s annual “Swinging For Santa” fundraiser, which provided Christmas gifts for less-fortunate children in the area.
“Having the opportunity to come here and be with this program since Day 1 has been the most rewarding journey I could have ever imagined,” he explained. “(HHS Principal) Mr. (Ronnie) Bradford had enough faith, trust and confidence in me to take on the task, while at the same time serving as the school’s first athletic director. Then that turned into an assistant principal’s position the next year and it’s been that way for the last 15 years. It’s been a truly remarkable experience.”
“He developed a program that focused on building character in young
Pritchett was watching his team — about 90 strong — go through drills on the turf at Bowers and Painter Field.
“We just love football,” he said with a smile. “We’re excited to be out here and we’re excited to see the growth we’ve made, especially in the weight room and what’s it going to do for the physicality of our game. We’re looking for kids that want to hit and compete on the field and strive to do things better.
“We had a great offseason and a full offseason. We’ve been in the weight room a lot and the kids are ahead of the game. They’ve made some great strides, strengthwise, and they’re learning what we want them to do. We’ve got a great group of kids out and some big numbers again.”
Year 1 for Pritchett back at his alma mater was a tough one as an extremely young roster went 0-10, though his players earned a reputation for playing hard-nosed football until the final whistle.
“We were starting five freshmen and nine sophomores in varsity football (last year), but that means we’ve got five sophomores and nine juniors this year who have a lot of varsity experience. We’re definitely leaning on that experience and, hopefully, that’ll help us out this year. They kind of know how to play the game now. They’re bigger, faster and stronger and, hopefully, we can find some different results.”
Pritchett said that as much as anything else, the Panthers were hungry to get back to their winning ways.
“There’s a lot of excitement around them,” he continued. “The theme for the year is ‘Claws Out’ and we’re go
ing to try to do some things this year. They’re hungry
and they’re ready to prove themselves.”