By Dan Messerschmidt
CCN Sports Director

NORTH ROBINSON — Dan Gorbett has had a hall-of-fame career as a high school baseball coach. And some may have thought his head coaching days were behind him.

But Gorbett’s passion for coaching has not burned out. He was tabbed as the new head baseball coach for the Colonel Crawford Eagles at the school’s board meeting Monday night.

“(Principal) Jake Bruner and (Athletic Director) David Sheldon did a great sell job on me,” Gorbett quipped. “They answered all my questions.”

Gorbett was an easy target for the two administrators, not just because his baseball coaching fires were still burning, but he was in the building on a regular basis. Gorbett has been working at Colonel Crawford through Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center as a career counselor, one or two days per week.

“We contacted Gorbs and told him we would like him to come home,” Sheldon said. “His record speaks for itself. We feel very fortunate. We think we hit a home run getting Dan Gorbett.”

Gorbett is indeed returning home. His first head coaching stint was at Colonel Crawford, from 1981-1995. He moved to Galion from 1996-2006 before taking over the reins at Ontario from 2010-2016. For the past two years, he has assisted Phil Jackson at Galion.

In 2006, the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association elected him into their Hall of Fame. Gorbett has compiled an impressive 535-281 record, including 11 league titles, 21 sectional championships, four district championships and two state poll championships. He was state Coach of the Year in 2013.

“As an assistant, I was still putting in a lot of time,” Gorbett said. “The difference is the mental stress. As an assistant, you give your opinion and go home. The head coach has to be thinking all the time.”

To create the opening, long-time head coach Joe Swartzmiller announced his resignation in May.

“After 12 years, Joe resigned and decided to step away from the game,” Sheldon said. “He put a lot of time and effort into this program.”

With the changing of the guard, Gorbett does not want to make comparisons.

“Everything from this point is looking forward,” Gorbett said. “We’re not going to look back. We just want to keep getting better. We’ll be very young, so we’ll work on the mental part of the game.”

Gorbett is familiar with the Northern 10 Athletic Conference, having faced many of the teams in his years in the defunct North Central Conference, both at Colonel Crawford and Ontario, and in non-league and tournament play as an assistant at Galion.

“The N10 is a good small-school league,” Gorbett said. “We’ll have our work cut out for us.”

“A lot of it had to do with the fact that he started at Colonel Crawford and he came full circle,” Sheldon said of Gorbett’s decision to return. “It’s not like he’s going to a place where he doesn’t know anybody.”

“Accepting the job was easy,” Gorbett said. “The hard part was saying good-bye to Galion. This is probably the only position I would have gone back to.”

“He’ll bring passion to our program,” Sheldon said. “We have young kids coming who love to play the game of baseball.”