Baseball tradition runs deep for Carrington's Wayne, Grady Shipman

Apr. 19—CARRINGTON, N.D. — Wayne Shipman has been involved in baseball — playing or coaching — for 38 years.

In 1986, Wayne began running the youth program in Granville, North Dakota. He ran the program for six years and coached the high school program at Granville for three. From there, he coached Babe Ruth baseball in Sykeston, North Dakota. In 2001, Wayne made the move to Carrington and began teaching. During the summers, he volunteered with Carrington's youth baseball teams. He acted as a volunteer youth coach for three years.

"I have always loved baseball," Wayne said. "I have coached pretty much every level ... T-ball, Peewee, Cal Ripken, Babe Ruth and high school baseball. I also coached girls softball. When they (Carrington) decided to begin a (high school) program in 2004, I applied for the head coach position and was selected to coach the team. It has been a very rewarding experience."

In his 21 seasons as Carrington's head high school coach, Wayne has not only had the privilege of leading the team to seven Class B State Tournaments but has also coached his two sons through the program.

His oldest, Jayden, graduated from Carrington in 2018. His younger son, Grady, is in the midst of his senior season this spring.

"My father has done so much for the Carrington baseball community," Grady said. "He has been coaching high school baseball for a while now. He has won many All-Region Coach of the Year (awards), in the summer when he is not coaching the team, he will still help kids with their swing no matter their age. He puts in a lot of work (and) the goal is to make kids the best they can be."

Wayne's work with Grady began as soon as he was old enough to throw a ball.

"Getting started in baseball happened at a young age for me," Grady said. "When I was young I would go to games that my dad would coach and during practice, I would run after balls. (At home) my dad would take me to the backyard and we would play catch. I just grew a liking of the game.

"I got started in baseball because I knew that was the best shot for me to play at a college level," he said. "I knew at a pretty young age that I wanted to play college baseball somewhere just never knew what time would bring."

In December 2023, Grady signed to continue his baseball career at Valley City State University (VCSU).

"What makes Grady a good baseball player is his dedication and hard work to the game," Wayne said. "He has a passion for it. Ever since Jayden went to VCSU (Grady) has really taken an interest in learning all about the game. He works hard to learn how to improve his pitching, fielding and hitting. He continues to ask me to take him to the batting cage for extra batting practice after practices are over. "

Grady is a fifth-year varsity team member for the Cardinals. He is best known for his pitching but has also been seen at shortstop or behind the plate at catcher. Wayne has officially coached Grady in baseball since he was named to the Cardinals' varsity squad in 2019.

"Coaching Grady has been good, he always wants to learn," Wayne said. "I usually just watch him do the drills, try to help him make sure he is doing things correctly, will video him taking swings and then watch the videos to see where he could improve.

"He is very dedicated to getting better, which is awesome in my eyes," he said. "I have coached plenty of sports and it's not always easy to get players to understand the amount of work it takes to be the best player you can be."

Grady attributed most of his understanding of the game to his dad's coaching.

"My dad has contributed to my career in so many ways," Grady said. "My dad has taught me so many things from how to swing a bat to the proper fielding position. When I'm bored at home I usually ask him if we can go hit in the cage and he will take me and work on things that haven't been feeling right.

"When it comes to baseball we have a very good relationship," he said. "Yeah, he yells at me, but I would be scared if he wasn't yelling at me. Because when he is yelling at me it's usually because he sees better in me than what I am doing and that has always been a good thing for me."

Carrington opened its season last week and will be four games deep by Friday. As of April 18, the Cardinals are 2-1 having picked up wins against Hillsboro/Central Valley and New Rockford-Sheyenne. Carrington dropped 9-2 to Velva/Drake-Anamoose in their second game of the season.

Results from Carrington's game at South Border on April 19 were not available when The Jamestown Sun went to press.

"For this season to be successful there needs to be a lot of work put in," Grady said. "The team needs to focus on the next game and not get upset when something goes their way. My motto this season is to take every pitch like its own game.

"I want to thank my teammates for always putting in the extra work to get better as a player and to become the best player they can be because without them the team would not succeed," he said. "I also want to say thank you to my dad for allowing us to be the best players we can be. None of my successes would have happened without him."