It did not take very long for Muldrow Public Schools to find its new baseball and assistant football coach.
Last week, Hulbert baseball coach John Rozell was hired to succeed Zane Rose as the new Bulldogs baseball and assistant football coach. He was in town for a meet and greet with patrons Thursday night at the Marty Rogers Field field house.
One of the things that sold Rozell was location.
“To be honest, it’s not too far from my house,” Rozell said. “We live in Cookson. I know it is a good school system. My friend Mack Chambers, who is the head coach at Seminole (State College, where Muldrow senior Reid Sutton signed to play college baseball), told me about the job, and that it had come open. That made me reach out and check into it.”
A second thing that was key to Rozell taking the job was the sense of “family.”
“One thing that really sold me, and I very much appreciated, was the word ‘family’ keeps coming up — from the A.D. (Jana Armer) to the superintendent (Leon Ashlock) to the people talking about family,” he said. “That’s a big deal to me. That’s very encouraging.”
Rozell basically just wants to get his feet wet with the baseball players before trying to see just what needs to be done with the program.
“I really don’t know what needs to be addressed,” the former Hulbert coach said. “I can hardly wait. I’m ready. I’ve just met some of the players. I’m just ready to start working. We have some summer games coming up. We have just three Wednesdays — June 12, 19 and 26. I’m looking forward to that. I hoped we could practice Friday (weather permitting). I wish we could have practiced today (Thursday), but it was too wet.”
The Bulldogs went 16-10 last season and made it to the Class 4A Regional Tournament finals before being eliminated by regionalhost Sallisaw. The ’Dogs graduated seven seniors, with two of them signing letters of intent — Sutton and Colton Pulliam, who signed with Northwestern Oklahoma State University — so, Rozell is inheriting a young team, but he’s been used to that during his tenure with the Hulbert Riders.
“Coming from Hulbert, we just had two seasons in a row with young guys,” said Rozell, whose Riders were 10-19 last season, but picked up a 6-5 win over Roland on April 4. “It’s tough when you lose seven seniors. I’ve talked to a bunch of people, and they said there’s a good young group coming up. My son is a ninth-grader, so he’ll be a part of that class. I’ve heard people go on and on about the eighth- and ninth-graders this year. Of course, we have the guys that are still here. They had a good year this year — it wasn’t just the seven seniors. I don’t think the cupboard isn’t bare at all. I think we’re just going to reload. The goal is to not have to rebuild, but to reload.”
Of course, not only are there baseball coaching duties for Rozell to dive into, but there’s also football assistant coaching duties to meet head on. He said he is going to be coaching wide receivers and defensive linemen.
“(Thursday) was my first practice,” he said. “It was the last day of spring football practice. I was here for summer pride (Thursday) morning. I’m excited. I got to meet the players. I’m looking forward to that as well. We had team camp Tuesday and (today), then we got passing league starting right after that.”
After a short time off, the new Muldrow coach said it’s time to get going with his new teams.
“I might as well hit the ground running,” Rozell said. “I’ve had a week off, so I’m kind of tired just sitting around. The excitement of going somewhere new gets you going, too. I’m looking forward to it. I can’t wait. I’m glad to be here.”
