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It’s 5:30 pm at Pat Thomas Stadium in Leesburg, Florida. The Winter Garden Squeeze are preparing to open their season against the Leesburg Lightning and the players, feeling a mixture of excitement and nerves, take batting practice. The coach throwing them ‘BP’ has had a wealth of experience both as a player and, now, as a coach.

“Bet you didn’t know I threw BP as well,” Squeeze head coach Terry Abbott said to me with a laugh. Abbott maintains this upbeat attitude even throughout the game. His outlook on the game of baseball exceeds the roller coaster of wins and losses, instead it’s an outlook originated in the love of the game.

“Playing catch with my dad every afternoon when he came home from work, that’s where it started, in the backyard,” Abbott recalls when asked about where his love of baseball originated. “I was waiting on my dad every single day, Lord help him, he worked all day, tired, and I’m standing there with my glove and my bat and my ball; he never said a word, except ‘give me five minutes, I’ll be dressed and we’ll go outside.’”

Abbott was drafted in the 15th round of the 1977 MLB Amateur Draft out of Jacksonville State University where he played under his uncle Rudy Abbott, who is a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. His minor league career lasted until the 1981 season when he was released by the Braves organization. With a couple of offers on the table, his uncle called him to offer him a position as the pitching coach for the Gamecocks.

“When I got released, I had a couple of double-A offers on the table and my uncle called me up and says ‘hey, where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going to double-A,’” Abbott remembers. “[Rudy Abbott] told me ‘I want to teach you how to coach. If you’ll go recruiting with me, I’ll show you how to run practices, how to break down players’ tools, how to develop players, I’ll pay for your Master’s.’”

It was a decision that Abbott struggled with. His uncle told him that he didn’t believe that he was a major league prospect. Terry ultimately said yes to Rudy after doing some soul searching. After saying yes, Abbott described the difficulty in transitioning from a player to a coach.

“When you’re a player, you think like a player,” Abbott said. “Over a period of time, I had to learn to coach, not play.”

Following his stint with Jacksonville State, Abbott jumped around at the high school and minor league levels, covering each rank from the Rookie League to Double-A. Then, in 2001, he joined the Cincinnati Reds as their scouting supervisor. The move forced him to view the game of baseball through a different lens.

“When you are scouting, you’re evaluating tools,” Abbott said. “You’re trying to figure out how much money [an athlete] is worth.”

His stint with the Reds lasted 16 seasons in total, including the three-year stint as scouting supervisor. Then, in 2012, Abbott jumped on another opportunity, this time to become the pitching coach for the German National Team. He cites his relationship with then-manager and Georgia State head coach Greg Frady as the reason for him getting this opportunity.

“This game is about relationships and people you know and if you hang around long enough, you get to do cool things like that,” Abbott said when asked how this opportunity came to fruition.

Through 42 years of playing, coaching, and scouting at the collegiate, minor league, and professional level, the love of the game has been the one constant for Abbott throughout his baseball career. Helping young athletes grow is what keeps him coming back day after day. The advice he gives to aspiring coaches today are the same lessons he learned as a coach: you have to love the game so much that you are willing to give back.

“If we do all the things well and if we win some games, that’s a great thing,” Abbott said of his job. “If they learn to compete, never give up, and learn work habits so that [those virtues] can propel them at their colleges next season, then I’ve done my job. I want them to be a little better than when they came in. That’s what keeps me coming back.”

Logan Whaley (Union)