Coldwater High School’s mission: Continue stoking passion 2 legendary baseball coaches sparked

Coldwater High School is working to reestablish the leadership lost by the passing of two baseball coaches, who between them developed a community of deeply passionate players and coaches.

>> RELATED: Longtime Coldwater baseball coach Lou Brunswick has died

“The baseball program’s kind of representative of what our town’s about, tight, tight family, tight teammates, good quality coaches or great men to lead our kids,” Principal Jason Hemmelgarn told News Center 7′s Molly Koweek on Tuesday.

Filling that leadership vacuum at Coldwater took on a special urgency with the recent deaths of Brian Harlamert and Lou Brunswick, both longtime baseball coaches and teachers for Coldwater Village Exempted Schools.

>> RELATED: Longtime Coldwater baseball coach, teacher Brian Harlamert has died

Harlamert, 51, died Sept. 21.

Brunswick, 93, died Oct. 1.

Brunswick and Harlamert taught players and coaches to grow that community by passing along that passion -- whether you played football, baseball or any sport.

“If you want to be good, you’ve got to share your guys,” said Chip Otten, football head coach at Coldwater.

The commitment and passion that fuels it is unique to the village, Hemmelgarn said. “I think it’s difficult when you’re an outsider to understand, you know how this community works.”

Hemmelgarn was on the 1987 varsity baseball team that won a state title. The coach? Brunswick.

Brunswick’s teammate was Harlamert, who would take over the program in 1998, passing along his knowledge and that special Coldwater passion to Cory Klenke, varsity assistant baseball coach.

“To coach alongside of him, I was able to continue my learning,” Klenke said.

And it doesn’t stop with the coaches; the passion spreads down to the players.

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Braxton Howell, a junior and dual-sport athlete, is one who is learning more than just game strategies from Klenke and Otten.

Otten, who played for Brunswick in the late 1970s, said Brunswick “established the expectations that we’re going to do things right, we’re going to play hard, we’re going to learn.”

And that just carried over to his sons Brian and Corey.

The legacy of Brunswick and Harlamert stretches to 1959. The two coached all but four of those 63 seasons.

“To lose two iconic you know Coldwater baseball coaching legends like that, you know within a week apart was just you know, gut wrenching a little bit,” Klenke said.

Howell, the two-sport man, said he knows the heartbreak the baseball has experienced will be tough as the first pitch is just a few months away.

It will be “very emotional, I think. It’s going to be tough, but I think we can, if we all rally together, I think we can at least stay together and do well.”

The teammate mentality, the sharing of resources between sports teams, came from Harlamert, Braxton said.

He also learned something from Brunswick, who taught the varsity boys the curve ball grip.

“I know coach Bunswick loved it,” Klenke said, “just as much as the boys enjoyed you know spending the time with him, and like I said, picking his brain.”

Brunswick and Harlamert taught generations of baseball players so much more than curve balls, how to execute double-plays or when to take a pitch while batting.

They were able “to show people how it’s supposed to be done the right way, and play as hard as you can, win a lot of games, lose some games, handle both of them with dignity and know how to do that,” Hemmelgarn said.

“And so that’s kind of what this town’s about. it’s not very big. What we do here is pretty special, in my mind, and those are the kind of guys who help lead that to happen,” he said.

The funeral for Harlamert was a week ago.

Brunswick’s final services will be Thursday.