SYLVANIA, Ohio — Northview baseball beat Clay on Wednesday to advance to the district final and they're getting some help from a very familiar face.
Tom Runnels is now helping out with the Wildcats. Of course, he was the Mud Hens manager in the 90s, managed in the MLB and he spent time a ton of time as a bench coach in the big leagues as well.
But now he's helping the next generation of baseball players. This Northview team is putting up unbelievable power numbers this year, and part of that is certainly Runnels' influence...
He has an amazing resume, even if some of his young players don't know it yet.
"I doubt that too many of them know everything about me, but they know a little bit," said Runnels. "I think that they enough and that I've been in the game long enough. I'm not sure that it impresses them."
"It's wonderful to have it and sometimes I feel like it's taken for granted because it's hard to process how much he's done," said senior Brodey Acres. "It was overwhelming at first to know that we were in the presence of someone like that, but it's great and I feel like we use it to our full advantage."
"I don't even know if I can describe it. It's an unbelievable asset," said Northview head coach Greg Szparka. "The knowledge he brings every single day, I've been coaching for a while, and I still learn every single day from the guy. It's unreal."