July 10, 2015
MARSHALL NEWS MESSENGER (7/5/2015) - Life throws all kinds of curveballs. Just ask East Texas Baptist University head baseball coach Jared Hood, who's back in his hometown of Marshall.
"I tell people all the time I never pictured myself back but life happens," Hood said. "Your plans aren't always God's plans. To be back in my hometown, raising my 2-year old daughter and soon to b another one, we're around our families and we couldn't wish to be in a better spot."
Hood said if someone would have told him when he was in high school that he'd be where he is today, there's no way he would have believed it.
"Never," he said. "I wanted to get as far from here. I was dumb, man. When I was graduating from high school, I was saying, 'I'm going to play professional baseball.' It's amazing the things that become important to you when you become older. I thought I was such a great teammate and I thought I was doing a lot of things right but I was actually really, really selfish looking back at it because it was, 'Where can I go? Who's going to give me the most scholarship money? I want to get drafted. I want to do this and I want to do that.' Really, I put baseball on a pedestal. Since I've started a family, my priorities have definitely changed. That has a lot to do with coming back here and being part of the ETBU family and how good they've been to me and my family. It's been a blessing to be back here, that's for sure."
Hood graduated from Marshall High School in 2005 where he played wide receiver and quarterback for the Mavericks football team and played a variety of positions in baseball, including pitcher, third base and outfield.
"I signed to play at University of New Mexico," Hood added. "I tore my ACL senior year of football in the first game against Longview and had to sit the sidelines as we went to the state championship game. I didn't get to play in it. Anyway, I signed to play at New Mexico and then I went to Hill College for a year and then transferred to UT Tyler."
He gave more thought to coaching after suffering an injury late in his college career which put an end to the idea of going pro.
"My senior year I was having a really good year," he said. "I was doing well and a scout called me and said, 'You're doing really well. Keep it up. Your name is being thrown around a lot out there and you might get drafted.' It was about a week or two after that when I blew my knee out. (I had) a lot of emotions at that point. 'Why this? Why that?' I called my old coach at Hill and told him what had happened and he said, 'Well all that really means is you can come coach with me.'"
That's exactly what he did and it was there where he discovered he really enjoyed it and was good at it, and that opened up the doors for other opportunities.
"I was coaching at Hill and I had been there for three years," Hood said. "I had gotten married to my wife, Madison, and she graduated from Law School in Houston and she got offered the assistant DA job in Gregg County. I basically told her she couldn't turn it down so we moved back home and there just so happed to be an assistant baseball coaching job open here."
Hood and his wife are high school sweethearts.
"I was always kind of chasing her throughout high school," he said. "We started dating our senior year so we didn't have a lot of time together before we went off to college. She went to University of Texas in Austin and that's all she wrote. We worked it out. I've got a 2-years old daughter, her name is Avynn and we've got another one on the way. The due date is Aug. 24. We're ready."
The two ended back in their hometown where Hood served as an assistant coach for two years before being promoted to head coach when former head coach Lee Driggers left for Union University.
"Coming here to ETBU was really essentially a way for me to stay in baseball," Hood said. "It wasn't until I stepped on foot on campus I began to understand the type of community at the school. It's like nothing I've experience at any other school I've been to, the type of kids that are here, the type of family that is this faith-based institution, it's outstanding. I wish I had been more open-minded when I was growing up here."
Hood says one of the most rewarding parts about his job, is getting to know his players on and off the field.
"I'm still learning," he added. "There are things I don't have figured out. The thing that makes it easier is how good of a group of kids we have in our program. These kids are some of the best human beings I've ever been around my whole life. I mean, you take baseball away from these kids and you're left with an outstanding group of guys. I think there's a lot to be said of that and their character. The amount of community service that they do, they had about 385 hours last year in community service. They lead our praise and worship service. They do so much other than baseball that it's really a joy being around them."
As a graduate of Marshall High School, Hood says he tries to keep up with the Mavericks as much as possible.
"We've gone to quite a few football games the last couple years," he said. "I don't get to as many baseball games because of our season schedules. They're trying to reinvent a culture, a lot of the same things as what we're trying to do here in our program. They've got some great athletes. They're getting a lot better."
Editor's Note: This is the third installment of an occasional series. Send any topic suggestions to nhague@marshallnewsmessenger.com
(Used by permission www.marshallnewsmessenger.com, story written by Sports Editor Nathan Hague.)