Dufur’s Little removes baseball from coaching plate

In a somewhat, surprising announcement May 31, longtime (36-years) Coach CS Little said he is retiring as baseball coach.

“The time has come to focus on some other things, so I’m retiring from baseball,” said Little, 61, who won the 2022 Class 2A/1A Coach-of-the-Year Award. “I’m starting to scale back a little bit in sports. I’m not all the way retired. I’m still going to coach basketball and football, so I’m not all the way done. Next year will be my 40th year coaching at Dufur and that’s a pretty long time.”

The No. 4 ranked Rangers (24-3) recently completed one of their most successful seasons ever in OSAA Class 2A/1A baseball as they advanced to the state semifinals for the second time in school history. A talented Ranger squad led by senior catcher Gabe Petroff and 2A/1A Player-of-the-Year Isaac Anthony, lost 4-3 to the Umpqua Valley Christian (25-5) on May 31 in Roseburg to conclude their finest season since 2017 — the last time the Rangers reached the semifinals.

“Yeah, I was a little surprised when I heard that he was retiring and I think it was kind of an unexpected move,” said Petroff, who earned a first team all-state award as a designated hitter. “I had no idea that he was planning on doing that. We all heard about it following the semifinals. I can understand why he decided to because he’s coached for a long time and that’s a good note to end on by reaching the semis. It was fun playing for him for four years and I really enjoyed it. I like him as the coach, and he was just awesome.”

The 2022 Ranger squad might’ve been the finest team that Little has guided in his career, as four players — Petroff, Anthony, Carson Smith and Brock LaFaver earned all-state awards. All four will continue their baseball careers in college next season. During his tenure, Little helped lead the Rangers to the state playoffs 10 times. Dufur advanced to state five consecutive seasons from 2013-2017, including quarterfinal appearances in 2014 and 2015. Little also led the Rangers to first round state playoff berths in 1999, 2007 and 2008.

Little will continue his position as an assistant to head Coach Hollie Darden on the Ranger boys basketball team and he’s also an assistant to head Coach Jack Henderson on the Ranger football team.

“He has certainly dedicated a large portion of his life to Ranger athletics, and he’s been in charge of the baseball program for a long time,” said Henderson, Dufur High superintendent/athletic director. “It’s certainly going to be tough to replace him. You really can’t replace people like him, and you just feel lucky to have them. He did an amazing job while investing thousands of hours in guiding the Ranger baseball program for a long, long time. He’s spent thousands of hours working to help the Ranger baseball program have some success. We’ve had a pretty amazing amount of consistent success during his tenure.”

Henderson is in charge of hiring the new baseball coach.

“It’s always tough to replace successful people like CS,” said Henderson. “There’s only so many people around like him. It’s not easy to be a successful coach. It’s one thing to be a coach and have success when you have amazing athletes. The real test of a coach’s ability is his consistency. The real success for a coach is when he can help every kid grow and improve and be successful on a consistent basis.”