23-year-old to take over for 26-year baseball coaching veteran
It's always an awkward transition when a legendary coach steps down, but that switch is made even tougher to adjust to when the man who is taking over for him is still called "the kid" by the departing coach himself.
That's precisely the case in Lafayette, Ind., where 64-year-old Benton (Ind.) Central High baseball coach Gary DeHaven is leaving after a 26-year coaching career at BC and handing the reins for his program over to 23-year-old Tyler Rosenbarger.
In turn, Rosenberger will become one of the two youngest varsity baseball coaches in America, all while having to deal with the reality that he has been on the planet for fewer years than his departing coach has led the program he's about to take over.
"[DeHaven] has won a ton of games and has influenced a lot of people," Rosenbarger, who recently graduated from Purdue and was BC's junior varsity coach this season, told the Lafayette Journal Courier. "He has been a great role model. I hope I can do half the things that he accomplished."
While some might assume that DeHaven would want more trusted hands at the rudder of the program he was instrumental in building, the departing coach insisted that was anything but the case.
"He is a great kid," DeHaven told the Journal Courier. "It's going to be fun for him, and it's going to be fun to see how he does."
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