Growth can be sneaky and surprising; from small starts can come sudden larger leaps that surprise even those who are paying attention. This spring season brought such a leap, with the unforeseen and very welcome turnaround and success of the Wheat Ridge Farmers Baseball program. Increasing in both players and wins from a twelve-player roster and zero-win season two years ago, this year saw the Farmers increase to five wins in their varsity campaign, and more importantly saw the reintroduction of a full Varsity and Junior Varsity team. There was vigorous energy around games this year, and I was able to sit and discuss team philosophy, family and culture building with Anthony Tate, Head Coach of the Wheat Ridge Farmers Baseball team.
NG: What is your experience with Wheat Ridge High School and the Baseball team?
Coach Tate: I am Wheat Ridge alumni; I graduated in 2019 and was a three-sport athlete. This is my third-year coaching and first year as head coach. I have been an assistant coach for the past three years. I am big into our Wheat Ridge community; I teach at Stevens elementary school. Having come up under Coach Miller, the former long-time coach at Wheat Ridge, the expectation was to be good people first, because we represented this amazing school. People see the WR and they know, so you need be a present and positive ambassador. I want that for this baseball team.
NG: How would you describe the experience of being a first year Head Coach at the High School level?
Coach Tate: It has truly been amazing, having played at the next level after high school and now coming back and coaching at the school I came up in is just amazing. I won’t lie; it has its ups and downs but building a culture with good players is a great experience. There has been a lot of growth this year, both on the field and within our team.
NG: Having coached last year as well, what were the big improvements this year overall to the team and program?
Coach Tate: The culture building for sure, and we had a huge increase in numbers at tryouts. This year we were able to field a JV team; attitudes have changed in a good way and there is a lot more buy in and trust. I think the team saw our staff as constant presence and we presented serious and clear philosophy around how this program would run.
NG: Let’s talk about coaching staff, how did you get your father and brothers to jump in on this? And how did Doug and Charlie Longoria, the new JV Coaches, fit in?
Coach Tate: My route to building a program is based on faith, family, discipline and hard work. We emphasize consistency. It is how I was raised. To do this you must create a feeling of family, so I brought in my family. My dad coached us in our youth and was excited to coach again alongside his children. Both my brothers played at Wheat Ridge, and most of us are alumni. We all love baseball. With the Longoria’s, I met Charlie at a local gym and umpiring at games. Charlie approached and talked to me about coaching, and with them having a lot of experience coaching baseball in general and being a family unit (Doug is Charlie’s father), along with a shared philosophy for building team, it was a great fit. They have done an amazing job with the Junior Varsity team. Players had a lot of fun at that level and showed a lot of improvement.
NG: What do you feel are the teams’ strengths going on next year, and what are your biggest challenges?
Coach Tate: This season we started building a new team culture, which has been missing, our strengths are in bonding between teammates, trusting your coaches and being accountable. The kids showed real grit this year, which meant more winning. We improved to 5 wins this season. Two years back we were winless over the entire season. Our biggest challenge now is going to be a strength moving forward in that we are young. Lots of younger players, fourteen players at fifteen years old this year. Enrollment at Wheat Ridge is also low overall, which is a challenge, but we had increased numbers this year at tryouts, up to 29 from 14 from last year when we had no JV team.
NG: Do you have any advice for incoming freshmen that might be interested in playing baseball for this historic program?
Coach Tate: At Wheat Ridge we will play the best player. We want to be the best. We want consistency, be patient and work, hustle does not take talent, it takes hard work. We are here for the student athletes, and we want to build a team around student athletes. We will have realistic goals and high expectations. If you want to play baseball, come out and play baseball. We are ready.
A special thanks to the Coaching Staff, AD Jason Campbell and the players and families that made this season exciting and fun. Let’s go Farmers!
Varsity Coaching Staff
Anthony Tate, Head Coach
Steve Tate, Assistant Coach
Gino Tate, Assistant Coach
Rocco Tate, Assistant Coach
Lance Krisl, Assistant Coach
Josiah Williams, Manager
Junior Varsity Coaching Staff
Doug Longoria, Head Coach
Doug Longoria, Assistant Coach
Roster:
Seniors – Anthony Torrez V, Zachery Martin-Bledsoe V, Nathan Trione Jr. V, Brayden Ware V/JV, Ethan Andrews V/JV, Akelin Hurd V/JV.
Juniors – Graham Martinez V, Sawyer Kingsley V, Zachary Pagano V,
Sophomores – Brody Villa-Castillo V, Shane Lindner V/JV, Liam McCullough V/JV, Erick Arellano V/JV.
Freshmen – Oliver Fushimi V/JV, Roehnin Wilson V/JV, Lukas Billington V/JV, Isaac Torrez V/JV, James Grimes V/JV, Edward Yandik V/JV, Terrence Dewane JV, Fabian Arrendono JV, Kyler Stief JV
