ELIZABETHTOWN — Grant Pait, an assistant to Russell Priest, has been named to succeed him as the head baseball coach at East Bladen High School.
Pait was a key part of the staff last year when the Eagles advanced to the fourth round of the state playoffs, the school’s deepest postseason run since opening in 2001-02. He’s a 1993 graduate of the old Bladenboro High School, played collegiately at Southeastern Community College and has coached youth baseball for better than two decades.
With the Eagles, he was a part of the staff each of the last five years. He’s been a familiar face of late in the first base coaching box, giving signs to hitters.
“It’s been fun,” Pait said. “I’ve learned a lot from Coach Priest. I’ve coached youth baseball forever, and then when you go and get out actually with the high school level, there are a lot of different situations. You have to handle the kids different. It’s been a fun ride. Last year, we had a good time.”
In speaking of the change in leadership, Pait expressed gratitude to Priest for all he’s taught and shared with him through the years. He also thanked administrators for having confidence in him to do the job.
Details on how the coaching change evolved are mostly covered by Bladen County Schools rules related to personnel. The Bladen Journal sought and received the information through multiple sources, though ultimately the newspaper honored confidentiality requests.
Pait’s hiring was approved by the Board of Education in January. No assistant coaches have been named.
“Still looking — in the process right now,” Pait said of his staff.
Opponents will not see significant changes in the Eagles when they step into a dugout on game day, the coach said. Pait said he learned a lot from Priest, whose teams were known for being fundamentally sound and always ready to play.
“It’ll be basically what we’ve run the last five years,” Pait said. “Don’t let your teammate down, have their back, next man up, the harder you work, the luckier you get.
“I preach to them do your job.”
East Bladen finished second to Whiteville in the Three Rivers Conference last year, compiling a 19-7 record overall and 13-4 mark in the league. While seven seniors graduated from that team, all but two players on a Dixie Youth Baseball squad that won the three-team state tournament and advanced to the World Series in Louisiana were in the East Bladen program a year ago.
“That’s a lot of leadership that we graduated,” said Pait, who coached JV baseball and football at West Bladen the first year it opened. “And some of the young ones who played on that World Series summer team, they were in starting roles with last year’s team. We’re looking forward to that. Some of the younger ones were on the high school playoff run. We’re hoping that kind of lit a fire under them to know what’s coming. Summer ball is a little different than high school ball.”
He’s also got an eye on the 9- and 10-year-olds that represented Elizabethtown in the Dixie World Series.
“There’s a good nucleus coming up,” Pait said. “We want to build a program to where we’re keeping kids in the county. We want to retain all the kids we’ve got coming.”
Pait has for 13 years been the director of the Recreation & Parks Department for Bladen County, a position he will continue to hold. He was an assistant to Robert Mazur eight years prior to that.
Pait said everyone he reports to — county and school officials — knows he will abide by the county’s renewed emphasis from 2019 that workers can’t regularly leave their jobs early for things such as coaching. Pait’s normal shift is 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; practices will begin about 5:30.
“It’ll work out best for the program,” Pait said. “Last year, we practiced JV and varsity together. And it’s hard to coach 28 kids versus 14 kids, but last year we had a lot of help to do that. All of our games are 6:30 or 7.”
Teams are allowed some level of individual workouts currently, and the first official practice date is Feb. 12. Contests can be played as soon as March 2. East Bladen opens with Whiteville back-to-back on the first week’s Tuesday and Friday.
“He was out there last year with Coach Priest, and they made a good run in the playoffs,” said East Bladen’s Patty Evers, the athletics director. “Grant is very organized and structured. He played under Coach Priest, he grew up playing baseball, and his daddy was his coach and my coach.
“His whole life has been baseball. He was a student of the game. I think he has a great passion for it, and makes for a good leader.”
Pait hopes to again see the fun times in May. The Eagles opened last year’s playoffs dusting First Flight 12-2, then visited a powerful Midway nine and came away with a 4-2 victory in eight innings. They routed N.C. School of Science & Math 13-0 in the third round before falling at Washington, 5-4.
“That environment was awesome,” Priest said of the win at Spivey’s Corner. “It was a jam-packed crowd — that’s what it was all about.”
Grant Pait (right) stands alongside Russell Priest during the national anthem prior to last year’s fourth-round playoff game in front of a packed house at Washington. Pait has been named the successor to Priest as East Bladen’s baseball head coach.