Ballpark lights illuminated the night time sky throughout Indiana baseball stadiums on Thursday. Fields have been lit as much as honor BJ Sigler, the Jennings County Excessive Faculty baseball coach who died on the age of fifty on Sept. 10.
Social media was flooded with tributes for the late coach.
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#LightsonforBJ
Sigler was an advocate for youth baseball, whose affect was felt in each nook of the state and properly previous its strains.
“His passing has left a giant gap in our group,” stated Jennings County assistant coach Invoice Lane. “He was a competitor; I feel that is the very first thing anybody would you about him. However he was additionally beneficiant together with his time, sources and data for the sport.
Jennings County head baseball coach BJ Sigler died on Sept. 10. Baseball fields throughout Indiana honored him by holding the sector lights on on Sept. 17.
“As a coach he believed in his gamers and pushed them to be their finest. He had an amazing impression on our crew, our faculty, our program and he will be dearly missed.”
Sigler, a 1994 graduate of Windfall Excessive Faculty, performed baseball at Indiana College-Southeast earlier than he served in the USA Air Pressure. He launched the Panther Baseball Membership, a journey ball group primarily based out of North Vernon, to assist youngsters play baseball. Sigler lined prices out of pocket. It was a deed meant to create alternatives for the following era of gamers.
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He then served because the Kentucky State Director and Southern Indiana Director of USSSA Baseball.
“He needed to provide alternatives to youngsters right here in Jennings County the possibility to play baseball and never need to pay,” stated Jennings County principal Dustin Curler. “He began placing on tournaments simply in order that he can cowl the participant charges for the crew … It morphed into what we all the time knew as a small group and grew right into a multi-state degree.”
Sigler was a board member and coach for the Indiana Bulls. He was a household man, a dad who shared the love for the sport together with his two sons, Cole and Brycen. He coached each of them throughout his tenure with the Bulls and had a entrance row seat to their baseball journeys.
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“There wasn’t a prouder dad on the planet than he was in each Cole and Brycen,” Curler stated. “I do know he would inform me proper now if he was sitting subsequent to me (that) he was most pleased with concerning the youngsters they have been and the character they’d however on prime of that, to observe them play baseball and have the fervour and love for it that he did, made his day.”
Sigler was employed as head baseball coach for Jennings County in July 2021 and held that place up till his dying. He spent 5 seasons on the helm. He was well-known within the baseball stratosphere. He had rapport throughout the state, with a operating joke that he’d run for mayor in any city he was in. He was the lifetime of the room. A gem within the baseball group that all the time introduced a smile to individuals’s faces.
Jennings County head baseball coach BJ Sigler died on Sept. 10. Baseball fields throughout Indiana honored him by holding the sector lights on on Sept. 17.
Thursday’s tribute was match for a person who devoted his life to youth baseball. Who bonded together with his sons, gamers and fellow coaches by the game.
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“When you could possibly have a man that is sitting on the nook of the dugout that everyone simply laughs about and smiles and jokes with, he was all the time that individual,” stated Indiana Bulls President Josh Loggins. “He was that man that offered comedian reduction however was in a position to be very critical when wanted to be … One among his greatest strengths was his skill to attach with individuals and have significant conversations that are not simply on the floor and that is what I recognize about BJ.”
Marc Ray is a highschool sports activities reporter on the IndyStar. He could be reached at marc.ray@indystar.com , and on X, previously Twitter, at @themarcszn.
This text initially appeared on Indianapolis Star: ‘His passing has left a giant gap.’ BJ Sigler remembered in Indiana baseball group