Former East Bladen High School assistant baseball coach Milton Senter had the baseball field at Fuquay-Varina High School named in his honor last week.
The Wake County Board of Education unanimously approved the motion Tuesday, March 17 to name the field for the longtime Bengals head coach.
“I’m pretty overwhelmed,” Senter said. “I was just a coach and I just enjoyed what I did as far as coaching the kids. I love teaching, too, just the whole experience.”
Senter and his wife, Gail, moved to White Lake almost four years ago after he retired from teaching and coaching. He helped former East Bladen baseball coach Grant Pait for two seasons and still teaches part-time at East Bladen.
Senter became a high school coaching legend over a 43-year career at his alma mater. He was inducted into the Wake County Public School System Hall of Fame in 2021.
“When you start out doing something you’re just doing it because you love it,” Senter said. “I was lucky enough to have a lot of good players. I got a lot of good help, good assistants and good administration.
“My wife, particularly, was very supportive. She had to do without me a lot of times because I was busy.”
Senter’s coaching record of 645-385 at Fuquay-Varina includes three NCHSAA 4A state championships (2002, 2018 and 2021), six trips to the state championship game with the first coming in 1980, 14 conference championships and 28 trips to the state playoffs. He was named conference coach of the year nine times, coached American Legion baseball for 13 years, had 73 players play collegiately and six players selected in the Major League Baseball draft.
When Senter’s time as a head coach had ended, he and Gail opted for a quieter lifestyle in White Lake compared to the hustle and bustle of the Triangle area. But coaching and teaching was still in his blood.
Businessman and neighbor Bo Barefoot mentioned to Senter that East Bladen might need some help with its baseball team. So, Senter talked with Pait.
“I was sitting in my office (at the Bladen County Recreation Department) one day and here he comes,” Pait recalled. “He said he retired from Fuquay-Varina and he wanted to get back involved by helping the baseball team … I didn’t know him from Adam, but we hit it off.
“Just his experience was the big thing. He’s been there, done that. With being a young coach, when you get someone with experience like that, it means a lot.”
Senter admits that he misses coaching, but, after 47 years, that it was time for Gail and him to do other things.
When asked his reaction when he first learned of the Fuquay-Varina baseball field being named for him, Senter said, “What I was thinking about was what about 20 years down the road and somebody comes up to the baseball field and says ‘who is the guy, Milton Senter? They got this name right there on the scoreboard’”
With his coaching resume, it’s unlikely that people around Fuquay-Varina will forget Milton Senter. They’ll always be reminded of his name on the Bengals’ scoreboard.
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