Baseball Coach of the Year: Turco takes Pope back to the top

Written in the Marietta Daily Journal:

In his first season at the reins of Pope’s baseball program, Chris Turco accomplished what countless coaches dream of.

He led his team to a state championship.

Turco helped the Greyhounds to a 33-7 overall record, an undefeated playoff run and a two-game sweep over Allatoona in the Class AAAAAA state championship series.

For his efforts, Turco was named the 2022 Cobb County Baseball Coach of the Year, as voted on by his peers.

“Being considered in a county like Cobb County is an unbelievable honor, because the coaches in the county are insane,” Turco said. “I think we have some of the best coaches in the state, so being given this massive honor, I really appreciate it.”

Pope’s title was its first since 2018 and third in the past six years. In the past decade, the Greyhounds have also been region champions six times.

However, the team’s run to glory in 2022 was not always as certain as the its pedigree may suggest.

After winning four straight games to begin the season, Pope finished its first 10 games with a 6-4 record, but Turco said there was a distinct turning point that set the stage for the remainder of Pope’s championship run.

In their first Region 6AAAAAA game against Kennesaw Mountain, the Greyhounds won 11-0. Following that win, Pope went on to win 25 of its next 28 games.

“There was a transition period. I mean, even though I’ve been in it for 19 years,” said Turco, a Pope alum and longtime assistant before succeeding mentor Jeff Rowland prior to the season. “So just trying to get used to a new head coach and a new staff with a lot of the coaches in different roles, even though a lot of the coaches were the same, the guys are getting used to it and everything it took.”

Turco, who had previously coached Pope’s softball team to a pair of state titles over 14 years, credited much of the baseball team’s success to his staff. Turco said Matt Lieberg handled pitching responsibilities, while he and Ryan Khan shared hitting responsibilities. Turco also said infield coach Michael Nelson helped produce “one of the best defenses in Pope history.”

Even with a strong support staff, Turco said his coaching method is derived to continually push and inspire his players. He said a major key to the team’s exploits was consistency.

Rallying behind the team motto “mudita” — a Sanskrit term defined as “unselfishness and joy in the good fortune of others” — Turco said his team built a tangible sense of brotherhood which lasted throughout the season.

Famous as a rallying cry among softball coaching ranks, Turco said the phrase easily translated to the baseball diamond and helped spark Pope’s dominant second half.

“I say a personal coach has to be very consistent and communicative with his players,” Turco said. “Some head coaches are like a general, but I’m like a second lieutenant. I always joke with them, like the guy that asked to go out there in the field, but also goes out with them and leads your troops.”

Even that mantra was something which took years of development across multiple different sports.

As a 1998 graduate of Pope, Turco went on to play collegiately at Presbyterian. Following his playing career, he stayed on with the Blue Hose as an assistant coach, where he remembered a defining day that changed his coaching trajectory.

Turco recalled a game from which he was ejected, and Presbyterian’s coach confronted him following the game.

“I learned I needed to learn a whole lot about coaching,” Turco said. “Coach sat me down and was like, ‘What are you doing?’ and it taught me that’s not really how coaches act.”

Turco said he has changed a lot during his career, both in mindset and practice. Now, with less theatrics and more strategy, he said he better understands the difficult role of being a manager.

And if a state championship within one of the most competitive classifications in Georgia is any evidence, those adjustments have paid off.

“I want to be the coach that I can say would be the perfect coach to play for. That’s how I want to act,” Turco said. “I would want the guys to want to play for me and not be a coach and that they don’t want to go out there for.”