Ocoee baseball's winning culture reignited by its legendary coach

When Ocoee High baseball team’s head coach, Bobby Brewer, stepped back into the Knights’ dugout at the beginning of this season, it felt like he never left. 

Brewer already had been teaching at Ocoee since 2014 when he first took over the baseball team, but he decided now was the time to return back to working within the school’s athletics. 

His reasoning for coming back was simple — he missed the community culture within Ocoee’s diamond.  

The walls, the batting fields and the high level of support from families and the community remained the same. The only trait that changed in his six years away from Ocoee was the ball-playing level. 

The team went 58-72. 

Now that Brewer is back, he’s working every day to bring Ocoee back to a winning record. He has helped transform the team, which went on a four-game losing streak at the beginning of the season to win its last eight of 10 games and produce a 10-12 overall record. 

LEGENDARY RETURN

Brewer is a longstanding name in the baseball and softball community. In 2001, he led an Apopka Little League team to a national championship. Following his Little League success, he stepped into the softball world after his daughters picked up the sport. He spent six years at West Orange, coaching the softball team up to a Final Four appearance in 2014 and compiling a 131-30 overall record in six years. 

But after spending six years as a Warrior, Brewer decided it was time to step back into baseball. 

He became Ocoee High’s baseball head coach in 2014, and in just four years, he became the winningest head coach in the Knights’ past 20 years. Brewer compiled a 67-60-1 record and led Ocoee to its first regional playoff appearance in school history. 

Then, he had his six-year stint with Apopka’s diamond, where he led the Blue Darters to a 91-48 record, a 2022 Regional Semifinal appearance and three district championship appearances. 

“It just brings a fire up in me because I have a coach (who) lived up to that legacy,” Ocoee’s senior first baseman Justin Otis said of playing under a decorated coach. “When he was in high school, he had the most RBIs as a freshman to his senior year. In college, his (number) got retired. It’s pretty cool.”

Otis previously had played at Lake Brantley High, and through Little League and the baseball world, he had heard of Brewer’s name. When he found out Brewer would be moving to Ocoee, Otis made the move too and has since fallen in love with it. 

Photo by Megan Bruinsma

Over Brewer’s years of coaching baseball and softball, he has begun to change his coaching style. 

When he was at Ocoee in those years, the team set records, but Brewer was coaching in intense mode. He said he used to be an extremely reactive coach, when someone would say something to him or an umpire would make a call, he’d quickly act out with emotion. Now, he first processes what he was told and how he should approach a response. 

Brewer described the change as “learning how to breathe.” 

“Not a lot of people like coach Brewer and coach (Michael)  McClenton because they yell a little too much at the players, but I personally think if a coach is not yelling at you, that means they have given up on you,” Otis said. “So if they keep on yelling at you every single day, they want you to get better, because they’re not here for themselves. They already finished playing baseball. They want you to be better than them in life.”

Brewer credits Ocoee’s previous coach, Trent Hopper, for developing respectful young men. When Brewer stepped back into his Knights gear, he didn’t have to teach the players how to respect others or act the right way. It already was there. 

So he turned his focus toward baseball development. 

Many of Ocoee’s players don’t have year-round baseball knowledge, so Brewer and the coaching staff stepped in with the basics. They didn’t assume the players knew certain skills or baseball strategies. 

“We knew coming in as coaches that we were going to have to start from the bottom and work our way up because, again, you can have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t have some kind of baseball IQ, it’s a struggle,” he said. 

The players saw the amount of dedication and effort the coaching staff was putting in during each practice. Ocoee’s senior captain and center fielder, Serico Allen, noticed it and used it as fuel to the fire for a change following the Knights’ early struggles. 

“We have to do our part because all the coaches are doing their part,” Otis said of Allen’s conversation. “They’re coming over here every single day, making us get better at practice, and we’re doing (well) in practice, but in the games, we’re not showing up.” 

Allen said after that conversation and once the whole team was unified in its mission to work as a whole, the record began to flip. The Knights had one simple takeaway: They win games when they work together. 

FUSING AS ONE

Ocoee began to make a conscious effort to improve the relationships within the team. Many of the players, including Otis, were new faces to the Knights’ roster, and like any relationship, it took time to blossom. 

“The biggest thing was the kids have bought into a team concept, and it’s all about us — not about anybody else or not one person — and they root for one another and they get along,” Brewer said. “I don’t have a bad kid on the team. … They work really hard to get where we’re at right now. I think we’re way more respected this year for the season that they’ve had.”

When Ocoee first began practice in the fall, Brewer would see little groups warming up together, rather than as one unit. He watched players compete for positions and struggle with bonding. Once the team began playing, players began to understand what their role would be, what they were batting for and who they were competing against. They became the Knights defending the mound. 

One of the simplest but most impactful changes to grow the players’ relationships was their dress code. 

Allen, who has played all four years at Ocoee, said he noticed a shift once Brewer stepped in to help. The team began practicing right after school every day in an organized fashion, the players show up to practice now in their baseball pants and Ocoee shirts, compared to last year in shorts and a T-shirt. All of the changes have helped create a more united team atmosphere. 

“We look better, look more like a ball club; I feel like with the fans and (the uniform) simulates what we look like in a game,” Allen said. “Practice how we play.”

He takes that message to heart. 

Allen played shortstop last season, but Brewer saw his potential as a centerfielder. 

“He never once complained,” Brewer said of Allen. “Total team guy; he’ll play anywhere you tell him to. I told him, ‘OK man, we need to get better in shape.’ I said that one time to him, and he went, boom, he dropped weight. … He’s athletic, he’s strong and just a fantastic leader.” 

Allen said he followed his coaches’ advice, he knows making an error at practice or warm-ups isn’t good enough and he shouldn’t settle with it. That one error can cost the team the game at batting time. 

The work ethic has paid off. Allen has worked to become not only Ocoee’s leading batter but also the leader in batting average in the district with .528, which has come to fruition through listening to his coaches. He knows the coaches have a long-standing résumés in the baseball community. Allen has prioritized keeping his head on the ball, even after he swings and not pulling off early or getting under the ball. 

“(Allen) just tells you plain in English if you don’t hustle, ‘You didn’t hustle, man,’ and he can say that because what are they going to say to him?” Brewer said. “He hustles all the time, so he’s allowed to say that. When he sits and tells a guy, ‘You got to put better effort than that,’ you can’t say anything back to Rico because he’s giving 100% all the time.”