The Challenges And Triumphs Of Coaching
Explored By Wessex’s Illiano In “Our Time”

By Steve Tober
For sidelinechatter.com

When the character, coach Norman Dale, portrayed by Gene Hackman, arrived in Hickory, Ind., to take over an unlikely basketball champion in the film, “Hoosiers,” he faced second-guessing fathers, a tenacious teacher who did not want to see the school’s best player return to the team, and a town full of doubters, who basically wanted to run their new coach out of town before the season had even hit its stretch run.

Welcome to the world of high school sports coaching, parenting and redemption, circa 1954, as the Hickory High School team portrayed, with all the trials and tribulations of a scholastic sports nightmare turned Godsend, thanks to a coach’s perseverance and belief, not only in himself, but in the strength of his players.

Although clearly not scripted out of a Hollywood movie, the recently-published book, “Our Time: A High School Baseball Coach’s Journey” written by West Essex baseball coach Scott Illiano, still has many components of true drama in a community where parents are as demanding as ever, school administrators can test one’s resolve, yet coaching is as both demanding and rewarding as ever.

While the build-up in “Our Time” revolves around the genesis of an unlikely Greater Newark Tournament championship 2006 season for Illiano’s West Essex Knights diamond squad, there is much more to the story, both before and after the triumph as a 15th seed in knocking off the highly-touted Seton Hall Prep Pirates of renowned coach Mike Sheppard, Jr., in that May’s GNT final played at Bears & Eagles Riverfront Stadium in Newark.

Illiano rises from a young head coach who is criticized by certain parents with their own unique agendas, and a local sportswriter with a flair for definite subjectivity while reminding readers that the Wessex coach had yet not achieved championships for the first part of his career.

Overcoming occasional self doubt about the realization of just how tough it is to win in a highly-competitive North Jersey scholastic baseball setting, Illiano truly takes us along with him on his journey as we see the constant, daily battle raging between fear and confidence, reinforced by the fact that baseball –like life – is frequently a battle to overcome failures or setbacks while trying to meet the daily challenges of winning on and off the field.

Illiano shares the inner world of a modern-day high school coach as he interacts with his players, dealing with them as individuals and as a team while trying to teach not only the nuances of America’s pastime, but also lessons of life that he hopes his young men can carry with them beyond the ball diamonds into the rest of their lives.

Sometimes, the triumphs are not the ones we would ever read about in The Star-Ledger, such as after Illiano relates what he believes are some lessons to be learned about in terms of avoiding certain late-night situations where illegal drugs or other temptations are present and then –later on – during the 2006 team’s GNT championship run, players actually do take it upon themselves to leave a party where not only drugs are present, but they exit before arrests are later made.

Even before he had coached West Essex to a GNT championship, Illiano had helped lay the groundwork for a triumph of teenage boys in terms of the latter’s wisdom in a bad situation

As far as the team itself was concerned, there were injuries to overcome, positions changes to become accustomed to and a general growth in confidence over the course of several weeks that came with both a developing maturity and an evolving team chemistry that combined to prove critical in what they ultimately accomplished as a unit of 15 players and four coaches.

Illiano has high praise for Seton Hall Prep’s storied program, their coach Mike Sheppard, Jr., and the team’s heralded young ace hurler, Rick Porcello, who would go on to be a starter for the Detroit Tigers, and the West Essex coach’s sincere love of the people, places and history that makes baseball such a special game in America sport ring true in the pages of “Our Time: A Baseball Coach’s Journey.”

There are motivational messages that Illiano relates from individuals ranging from Montclair State University psychology professor Dr. Rob Gilbert to LSU baseball coach Skip Bertrand, among many others, and many examples of the usual superstitions of the game, whether it’s what you eat and drink and where you sit to make out the lineup card, or where you go to gather your thoughts and reflect on a game and your team, rain or shine.

What is special about Illiano’s new book is not only the journey of the 2006 West Essex team, but also the messages about life’s lessons concerning overcoming failure and reaching for the stars, universal themes of redemption in their own unique New Millennium time frame, that relate thoughts to ponder that go beyond learning how to better deal with youngsters, their parents, and school administrators.

“Our Time: A High School Baseball Coach’s Journey” is must reading for anyone from Essex County, since many of the personalities will be immediately recognizable, but also for anyone – student, coach, teacher, school administrator, member of the media or fan – who simply love a good story about sport and life.

To find out more information about purchasing a copy of “Our time: A High School Baseball Coach’s Journey,” published by iUniverse of Bloomington, Ind., visit Amazon books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Scott-Illiano/e/B005UTBN2K