Mike McLeod is retiring at the end of the season after more than 30 years as head coach of the Tallahassee Community College baseball team. His final home game is Wednesday evening against Pensacola State College.
While the regular season is ending, the team has already clinched a spot in the upcoming state tournament. McLeod is pleased that the last home game of his career will not make or break his team’s season.
“Had we had to play tomorrow to go with my retirement impending and all that stuff,” said McLeod, “I would’ve been a nervous wreck but I’m pretty relaxed right now.”
McLeod has been the head coach at TCC for more than 30 years and leads all active junior college coaches in wins. His teams have won six conference titles, and he has been named coach of the year in the Panhandle Conference five times. But he believes his legacy stretches beyond his teams’ accomplishments on the baseball diamond.
“We just pride ourselves on doing it the right way here and creating men that can be successful in life,” says McLeod. “There’s no specific moment, I take a look back at all the guys that have played here and they’re all doing so well as adults. And that’s really, really what it’s all about.”
McLeod grew up in Tallahassee and played at Godby High School and Florida State University, where he would later serve as an assistant coach before taking the job at TCC. He has an all-time record of 1,056-571-4 at TCC heading into Wednesday’s regular season finale.
A reception celebrating his career will be held at Eagle Field on TCC’s campus at 4:30 Wednesday afternoon with the game scheduled to start at 6:00. The Eagles travel to Ocala on Friday, May 6 to begin the state tournament with a best-of-three series against College of Central Florida. If they win that, they head to Lakeland for the final round of the tournament the following weekend.
