By By BRUCE HIXON Sports Editor
His farewell came a lot tougher to say than he expected, but it was one Jamie Riggs made to the T.R. Miller Lady Tigers softball team after it was eliminated during the second sub-state round at Montgomery Catholic.
Riggs spent three years as the Lady Tigers skipper where he posted a 49-31 record and guided them into some previously uncharted territory.
After a 10-12 record in his first season at the helm in 2003, Riggs guided T.R. Miller to its first Area Tournament championship, a school record 21 wins and its first state tournament appearance in 2004. This year's squad made it two Area Tournament championships in a row and matched last year's state team for on the field victories with 18 (last year's squad received three forfeits).
Having coached boys on the football field for more than a quarter of a century, Riggs said it was a smooth transition to coach girls on the softball field.
One frustrating and puzzling area for Riggs' softball teams was their performance at home and on the road. The last two seasons T.R. Miller was a sizzling 25-4 at the Brewton Area YMCA Park, but just 11-15 on the road.
One area Riggs is proud of is the performance his teams turned in when postseason rolled around.
While he will take away mostly positive experiences, Riggs said he has one regret.
Riggs has some goals for the future of the program.
For us, that starts in the YMCA program. We're fortunate in that we have people, namely Dr. James Walker and Terrill Neal, who have spent a lot of time working with the girls at that level. I also hope we can get a junior varsity team started. I'd
like to see the program pick up another tournament or two on our regular season schedule," Riggs said.