Grand Slam Legacy | Issue 2021

John Diatte (’84) is not  in his office. Minutes before a scheduled interview, the Valley Christian baseball coach ditches his desk for a brisk walk around the warning track of the Warrior baseball stadium.
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Brisk might be an understatement: he’s down the third-base line and back to the dugout in a flash.

Entering his 33^rd year in charge of VCHS baseball and his 37^th year at the school overall, the man a former assistant describes as “full-throttle” shows little sign of easing up. And why should he? In June, the Warriors won their fourth consecutive CCS championship, becoming only the second program ever to accomplish that feat and the first to do so under a single head coach.

“Certainly, we’re very proud of the recent success,” Diatte confirms. “But I’m just as happy about the process that got us there: the players buying in, their willingness to work hard and embrace our Warrior baseball culture.”

The specifics of that culture are laid out in a seven-item list that Diatte prints out and distributes; at the very top, number one is “A desire to serve God and others!”

“I’m very blessed that Valley Christian allows me to preach Jesus while preaching baseball,” Diatte says. “In a lot of ways, we use the church as a model for building our program. These guys are part of something more important than themselves. They play different roles and are all key pieces of this body.”

Under Diatte’s tutelage, Valley Christian Schools’ has sent six alumni to the Major League ranks. Thirteen former Warriors currently play collegiately. Eddie Park is one of those thirteen; he graduated from VCHS in 2020 and is now an outfielder at Stanford.

“Coach always wants the best out of his players, and I think that’s what helps many guys prepare for college baseball, or for anything else beyond baseball,” Park explains. “He’s tough on us during practices especially so that the actual game could slow down. It’s his passion that really makes him special.”

That same passion allowed Diatte to weather the early struggles of a fledgling program. When he took over the Warriors in 1990, he didn’t have enough uniforms to outfit all of his players properly. Two years later, he won his first league title, earning fourteen more over the past years. Since 1998, Diatte’s teams have won ten CCS championships and have been ranked number one in the state on four different occasions.

“The school has had to take a lot of my bad with my good,” Diatte chuckles. “I have made so many mistakes, but I had to be the person I was then to be the coach I am now.”

Eric Scharrenberg took over as Valley Christian’s Athletic Director in 1999, and he noticed right away that his baseball coach was a “lifelong learner.”

“He has constantly sought out the very best minds and adapted his style to best practices in baseball and team building,” explains Scharrenberg, now the Vice President of K-12 Athletics and Physical Education. “Even so, while John has grown and adapted over the years, he has remained committed to his core principles.”

The most decorated coach in CCS history doesn’t have an offseason; it’s August, but he’s heading right back to the field after the interview. John Diatte’s real office remains open.

 

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