John Meyer, baseball coach, was inducted into the MSHSBCA Hall of Fame last Saturday in Jefferson City at the State Coaches convention.

The award is an honor, but Meyer said it is not just a display of his own success as a coach.

“It gives a positive light to Marquette, and the whole entire program, the players, the assistant coaches, everybody involved,” Meyer said. “The coach gets the recognition for this, but ultimately I didn’t play. It’s been years and years of players and teams doing this.”

Meyer said that to be considered for the hall of fame, a person must be a member of the association and have coached for 20-25 years. But beyond that, on field success and other factors play into whether a coach is accepted.

Meyer has been coaching since 1998, and in that time, has served as the president of MSHSBCA’s president.

Meyer’s present and past athletes were excited to hear he’d been inducted.

“Some former players were texting me once they found out because it came out on Twitter on that same day,” Meyer said. “I think there are a handful of people pretty excited knowing that they were a part of some successful teams, and if you have some success on the field, it usually points you in that direction to having some good recognition as a coach.”

It takes a long time to get a program to be good enough to be put in the spotlight like this, Meyer said.

Sam Shackleford, senior, has played baseball at MHS since freshman year. When talking about Coach Meyer, he frequently acknowledges his leadership qualities.

¨Well, he’s for sure been a leader for me as well as the team,¨ Schackleford said.

Shackleford later explained that Meyer has brought the team together in many ways, whether it’s his tough, loving style of coaching, or knowing when it is a good time to goof off. Now, the team now considers each other family, rather than just teammates.

When asking Shackleford what piece of Coach Meyer’s advice stuck with him most, he said, ¨You have two ears and one mouth.¨ Shackleford said this advice has helped the entire team work together.

Senior Principal Dr Rick Regina coached with Coach Meyers during his first year of coaching in 2003 to 2013 when he then became an administrator.

“The years I coached with Coach Meyer I learned so much,” Dr. Regina said. “The biggest thing that I learned was having high expectations that sometimes students, even me as a coach don’t realize what we are capable of, and coach Meyer does an excellent job of having high expectations for his athletes but more importantly it allows them to get more out of themselves than they thought they could.”

Instead of trying to win a game or a season, Coach Meyer tries to win every pitch. ¨ If you were batting, win the pitch, if you were catching, win the pitch,¨ Dr. Regina said.

Dr. Regina said Coach Meyer was inducted into the hall of fame because he is experienced, well respected, successful and dedicated to his athletes.