Hussion takes over Panthers varsity baseball
By JARED PUTNAM Union Sentinel Editor

Sentinel photo/Jared Putnam Head Coach C.T. Hussion.

C.T. Hussion has been around baseball all of his life. He started playing the sport when he was four, and eventually went on to play and help coach at both the high school and college levels. He's always had the desire to be a head coach, and will now have that opportunity as the new Head Coach of the Panthers varsity baseball team.

"I'm excited," Coach Hussion said. "This is what I love. This is what I've always wanted to do. I'd like to do this for a long, long, long time."

While the official announcement has not been made, Coach Hussion held a team meeting Monday in which he introduced himself to his players. Many of them he already knows from classes or though coaching football.

"This is a great place," Coach Hussion said. "It has unbelievable kids. We have athletes and we have good kids coming up."

The coach emphasized the importance of developing players into being good young men. He believes that a personal desire to play and the belief that you can win ball games are two of the most important keys to success.

"My goal is to get them to play, not because [their family] wants them to, or because I want them to, or their girlfriend wants them to," he said. "I want them to play because they want to be a part of a playoff caliber team."

The coach also said that expectations and confidence are two of the primary building blocks in establishing a winning baseball team. "Eighty percent of it is your mental approach to the game; learning fundamentals and doing them with confidence," the coach said. In terms of positional need, Coach Hussion emphasized the importance of pitching. "You need two good pitchers, and we can develop that," he said. The coach is scheduling summer workout sessions and hopes to involve the team in summer tournaments.

Hussion was born in the small coal-mining town of Grafton, West Virginia, but moved around a lot because his dad is a sportscaster. One constant in his life has been baseball.

"I was in one of those families where we all grew up around ball," Coach Hussion said. "My dad worked with park and rec near Stone Mountain. We owned a baseball card shop when we were little. This has been [a part of our family] our whole lives."

In his own high school playing days Hussion's Gainesville High School team reached the final four. He pitched and played the outfield at the time. He went on to Piedmont College where he went 11-1 as a starting pitcher as a freshman for the Lions. After obtaining his bachelors degree Hussion served as an assistant coach with the team while pursuing his master's degree.

Coach Hussion said that experience was invaluable, as he was able to take an active role right away, calling every pitch his first year. "That made a big difference and you learn baseball at that level," he said.

The Coach said there is a joke about his success as a head coach in college. Lions Head Coach Steve Harwood once got thrown out of a game and Hussion had to take over for the game. "We joke that I'm undefeated, 1-0, in college [as a head coach,]" Coach Hussion said. "We were losing when he got thrown out but we came back."

Coach Hussion eventually returned to his alma mater of Gainesville and helped coach under Wayne Vickery, as the school won 2 more state championships. "I've seen what it takes to win under that type of pressure and expectation," he said.

He also helped coach varsity football and later accepted the job as head coach of the school's wrestling team. "That program had not really done that well, so it was a good opportunity for me to build on it," the coach said. "We ended up winning region for the first time in school history and won the hall county championship for the first time." The school ended up having several state champions under his coaching and the Gainesville Times twice selected him as Coach of the Year for wrestling.

This was his first year at Union County High School. He has been an assistant coach with the varsity football team, but will give up that position to coach the sport he truly loves and to limit himself to one coaching duty.

"I've coached baseball much longer than football or wrestling," Coach Hussion said. "I'll miss football, but I moved up here so I could be around my family. I have coached two or three sports my whole career, and that's kind of one of the things we wanted to move up here to get away from."

Coach Hussion's wife Jana teaches at the Union County Primary School. They have a son, Brady, 2, and are in the process of building a home in the area. "My son and I are closer than we ever were because I was never home before," he said. "I had to get my priorities straight and I'm happy I did."