CHAD STOUT

WHEELING – He’s back!

Chad Stout’s baseball coaching career has come full circle.

After serving as an assistant baseball coach at Wheeling Park under Doug Tush, Stout took over the head coaching position from 2006-2011. He stepped away as he and his wife, Leah, welcomed twin daughters to their family.

Last week during an Ohio County Board of Education meeting, Stout was once again named head coach of the Patriots diamond program.

“I’m truly excited. I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “We take a lot of pride in our baseball program at Wheeling Park. For 25 years I’ve been a part of this program, so I have a little history with it. I’m so proud, so happy and so fortunate to have this opportunity to do it again.

“My twins – Addison and Elliana – are now incoming freshmen at Wheeling Park, and my oldest daughter, Kaylee, just graduated and is headed to Marshall University.”

Stout has served the last seven seasons as an assistant to Steve Myers, who stepped aside following last season after coaching since 2019.

“Steve Myers has been a very good friend of mine. He was an assistant when I was head coach and I was an assistant when he was head coach,” Stout explained. “Look how it has gone full circle. It’s crazy to think about the journey.”

Stout played at John Marshall in the early 1990s under Hall of Fame coach Bob Montgomery.

“If anybody knows anything about the John Marshall baseball program, they know about Coach (Bob) Montgomery. Baseball is pretty serious to him,” Stout noted. “If you’re lucky enough to play for him, and I did, you know what I mean.

“He is a Hall of Famer for a reason.”

After stepping away for the enlargement of his family, Stout got back into coaching at his other alma mater – West Liberty University.

“I ended up at West Liberty for three years as an assistant with another good friend of mine, Mark Cisar, and that was enjoyable,” he recalled. “That was a blast.”

Coach Bo McConnaughey was the head coach at West Liberty.

“There’s another legend. I’ve been very, very fortunate to play for some very good coaches, not just in baseball, but football and basketball, as well,” Stout added. “I’ve kind of taken a little bit of something from each and every one of them to develop my own coaching style.”

Stout then went to help Cisar at John Marshall when he took over for the retired Montgomery before returning to Wheeling Park in an assistant role..

“It’s a blessing from the school administration that we work with, to the players, to the outstanding facilities,” he added. “It’s a true team effort.”

Mike McLeod took over for when Stout stepped away.

“He continued the excellence that we strive for here at Wheeling Park.”

The cupboard is far from bare for the Patriots next spring

“We lost a great senior class but we’ve got a lot of younger kids that played on the JV team that are pretty good,” Stout said. “Our upperclassmen is a good group, as well.

“It’s a process that will start in the fall. We’ll do what we need to do, take a little break and then get in the weight room for conditioning. Before you know it, these 32 flex days in West Virginia will be here and it will be go-time.”

The most important thing for Stout comes through bonding with his players.

“I’m looking forward to getting with the players. I love coaching, but the best thing I love about it is the relationships you get to build with the kids and teach them some life lessons through baseball,” he said. “Wins are great – don’t get me wrong, we want to win – but there is a process to that. In high school, the kids need you as a coach. You need to be there for them, but you need to get on them at times because you’ve got to show them you’ve always got their best interest in mind.

“That’s nothing new. It’s what we’ve done here and it seems to be working.”

Stout said he hasn’t had a chance to meet with the team yet, but he has received a lot of text messages from guys that he coached the first time around.

“There have been so many people reaching out to me that it is truly humbling. It really means a lot.”

While he may be the coach on the field and in the dugout, he serves as an assistant at home.

“My wife, She’s the real coach in our family. She is someone that has been behind me for a long time and she loves baseball as much as I do. That helps out tremendously. She sits right there in the front row of the bleachers each game. She knows I get a little anxious before a game until I see that she’s there. My daughters are that way, too. They love baseball. They love dad and they love to watch dad’s team play.”