Imlay’s Coaching System is Different, But Brings Results for Patrick Henry : Athletics: Long-time Patriot baseball coach has been successful on golf course as well.

The stories are strange, but true. The man, too, is different, but true.

Bob Imlay has endured and prospered with the conviction that effort is its own reward and that convention is not always the path to success.

“I am what I am,” said Imlay, the baseball coach at Patrick Henry High and a competitor in this weekend’s final rounds of the San Diego Amateur Golf Tournament.

Brief timeout.

It wouldn’t seem appropriate to introduce Imlay without mentioning his lifelong partner, Betty.

Bob and Betty met and became best friends in the second grade at Loma Portal Elementary, started dating in the seventh grade at Dana Junior High, became engaged in the 10th grade at Point Loma High and were married one month after graduating from San Diego State, where Bob was a pitcher on SDSU’s 1958 NAIA championship team.

Bob is 53 and Betty, who doesn’t play golf but estimates she has seen 90% of Bob’s baseball games over the years, is nine months younger.

Time in.

Some call Bob Imlay mysterious, others crazy. Some think he is wise, others say he hasn’t a clue. Some deem him a philanthropist, others feel he couldn’t care less about others.

One thing no one can disagree on is that Imlay, with his handlebar mustache and goatee, has been the most successful baseball coach in the 23-year history of Patrick Henry. He is the only baseball coach the school has had.

“I have no idea what my won-loss record is,” Imlay said, “and I really don’t care, to tell you the truth. I know it’s a winning record. But I really don’t measure teams by that, nor individuals. And I try to emphasize that to my teams. It’s the effort that counts.

“Of course, you remember the championships (1974 and 1980), but those aren’t necessarily my fondest memories.”

Said Dick Serrano, who has been the varsity coach at USDHS for 21 years, “Any city coach that can maintain a competitive level in this day and age is doing a pretty good job. He has been able to do that.”

Imlay also has maintained a competitive golf swing, though he acknowledges he relies on his short game more each year.

He never has won the San Diego Amateur, but he is perennially among the leaders and finished second three years ago. He has qualified for the California Amateur Tournament 10 times and has been the Torrey Pines club champion seven times.

He probably won’t win this year’s amateur--he’s 12 strokes off the lead after last weekend’s first two rounds--but don’t count him out.

This is a man who won the first San Diego Section 3-A baseball championship after his team started the season 1-9. Last year’s team got off to another poor start and wound up winning the City Eastern League championship before losing in the playoff semifinals.

Another team won a bizarre Lions Tournament game over Santana High when the Sultan left fielder was suddenly attacked by a swarm of bees just as he was about to catch the final out of the game. The ball dropped, three runs scored, and Patrick Henry won by one.

Santana’s coach at the time was Marty Nellis, a former teammate of Imlay’s at SDSU. Said Betty Imlay: “After the game, Marty went up to (Bob) and told him, ‘You will do anything to win, won’t you?’ ”

Forever stressing his never-say-quit attitude, Imlay’s team this spring began 1-7 but wound up finishing second in the league at 8-4.

“He always wins in the second half of the season, no matter what the team has done in the beginning of the season,” Betty said. “He’s not afraid to change things.”

“As a coach, he’s done what he’s had to do to get (the most) out of his team,” said Madison’s coach of 21 years, Bob Roeder, who played at Point Loma with Imlay.

The methods have not always been orthodox, nor accepted by everyone.

One year, he used a “pitcher by committee” system.

“Each guy would get two innings, unless he walked two guys in a row. Then he would come out,” Betty explained. “He really didn’t have many good pitchers so he used everyone. People thought he was crazy, but it worked.”

Another year, Imlay had right- and left-handed hitting lineups, almost unheard of in high school competition. In the middle of the 1990 season, when Patrick Henry had lost a number of games because of a porous defense, he moved all eight regulars to a new position. Said Betty, “Boy, did the parents scream and yell about that.”

Know what? The team won eight of its next 10 games.

Imlay says that hitting is most important. In a lineup, he wants a good catcher and shortstop and six other guys who can hit.

When that doesn’t work . . .

In the early 1970s, Imlay tried to shake up a lethargic team by pairing off 18 players with nine bats and having the players wrestle. The nine who won and came back with the bats were to be the next game’s starters.

“I wouldn’t do that now, nor ever again,” Imlay said. “But at the time, it seemed appropriate, and we went on a five-game winning streak with that lineup.

“That team needed something to shake them up. But a lot of people didn’t like those tactics. One guy quit . . . He thought it was a stupid thing to do, and he was right.

“That incident was kind of the antithesis of my later philosophy. That was more of an animalistic behavior, a fear of being humiliated. But I’ve changed. And because of that, I’ve become more humanistic. If I had stayed like that, I would be out of baseball by now.”

There are those who wouldn’t mind if Imlay were out of baseball.

He’s heard the squawking, dealt with parents and coaches and received the letters.

“Being a coach, you’re up for criticism,” Imlay said. “That’s part of the territory. I’ve never been beloved by my fellow coaches because I don’t get fully involved in their summer league and their winter league. I have volunteers do that. And their all-star games, I don’t really believe that they’re a valuable service. I would much rather see a state playoff system.”

Imlay said he thought a couple of years ago about quitting. After last year, he was almost forced out.

Moments after Patrick Henry’s semifinal loss to Monte Vista, a Patriot player ignited a brawl that resulted in that player becoming ineligible for the next season and Patrick Henry and Imlay being placed on probation for one year.

Initially, Patrick Henry was banned from tournaments and postseason play in 1991, but a municipal court judge determined the San Diego Section was out of line in leveling such a punishment.

Small wonder, Imlay has some strong views about the section’s Code of Ethics policy. It is not that he is against the intent of the policy, but he says it doesn’t provide due process and it puts the responsibility of determining eligibility in the hands of umpires or referees. That’s against the constitution of the CIF, according to Imlay.

“It’s good to have guidelines that you do this or that if this happens,” Imlay said. “I’m all for that. But you don’t have people sign an oath in order for them to eligible to play. That’s like McCarthyism and his loyalty oaths in the ‘50s, assuming they’re all guilty until they say I’m not going to do this crime.

“It’s like saying, well, we’ll have every citizen sign a waiver that they will not rob a bank, and we’ll eliminate bank robberies.”

Imlay says part of the criticism he receives stems from people’s perception of him.

“I come across as terribly bland and understated,” he said. “I’m a fierce competitor. Always have been and always will be. Evidently, I don’t appear to be that way to a lot of people.

“I was instructed, after last year’s (brawl), that I should be more assertive, which is a nice way of saying that I was too easy, too liberal. From a drill sergeant, military-type point of view, authoritarian style of coaching, I would appear to be too permissive. But I set very high standards of behavior and self-starting assertiveness for my players, and I try to project that.

“I think that, overall, the relationships I’ve had with team members are of the highest quality. That’s important to me. But I care. Obviously, like anyone, I care what people think. It’s the kids, what they think is most important. The parents, other coaches, they come down on my priority list quite a ways.

“I’m not afraid to do innovative things. I don’t do things to please other people. My first priority is to please my vision of what we should be doing out on the field. That’s No. 1. And if it becomes a conflict, then there’s a conflict. I may change if I think I’m wrong. But if I think I’m right, I won’t change, regardless of the consequences.”

Said Serrano, “He has some different philosophies, and he believes in them. Sometimes we adjust our philosophies. He doesn’t adjust. So from that standpoint, I respect him.”

Imlay said the two biggest influences on his coaching career were Bennie Edens and Al Olson, his baseball coaches at Point Loma.

“(Bennie) just enjoyed coaching so much,” Imlay said. “From watching him, I decided, hey, that might not be a bad career to get into. Al Olson taught me more about baseball than I’ve probably forgotten.”

At Point Loma, Imlay was a off-speed pitcher. In a playoff game against Sweetwater, he had a perfect game going with two outs in the ninth inning (they played nine-inning games in those days). But on the pitch after he thought he had struck out the final batter of the game, the guy got a hit.

“It was a great pitch,” Betty said. “But the ump didn’t call it. Bob’s attitude, though, was amazing. He wasn’t angry or anything. His attitude was I went out there and gave it my best shot.”

“He was very easy-going,” Roeder said. “He was very interested in learning the skills. He had a great (temperament), never let anything get to him. People thought he was always smiling out on the mound. Really, he was just setting his jaw. He was determined to get the job done. He was a real competitor.”

That competitive instinct led Imlay to golf after he finished his baseball career with an MVP senior season at SDSU, where he had won a scholarship.

With a masters degree in physical education, Imlay began teaching at Wilson Junior High and San Diego High while serving in the Air Force reserves. When Patrick Henry opened in 1968, he got the job as baseball coach. He has taught physical education classes for most of his career, but this year he took on a new assignment teaching independent living.

“I was given that assignment in the same conversation as being put on probation (for the brawl incident),” Imlay said, laughing. “I think there was some correlation.”

When Roeder got word of Imlay’s classroom assignment, Roeder kidded Imlay, saying, “Who’s learning the most? He said, ‘I am.’ ”

He is in teaching because of coaching, but he believes in both. As a public educator, he feels it is his duty to work with the good kids and the not-so-good kids.

“I don’t get excited about all-star teams and all-league teams, because I believe there are more good kids out there than there are positions available,” Imlay said.

“I’ve stepped on some toes, as far as the coaches’ association is concerned. But I just don’t believe in some of the things they’re about.

“Plus, they usually meet on Saturday . . . which is a golf day.”