By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

HURLEY — For most of the past 40 years, a Long has led a prep baseball team in South Mississippi into the state playoffs.

But this season, the “First Family” of high school baseball in Jackson County has doubled their pleasure.

Both East Central, led by veteran Hornet head coach Bo Long, and Ocean Springs, which is under the direction of rookie mentor Ryne Long, have qualified for the state playoffs.

The two head coaches are cousins, and come from the same family tree that produced state championship winning skippers at ECHS in Rocky Long and Gary Long. That makes four generations of Longs that have led teams in Jackson county into the state baseball playoffs.

“I’ll tell you this, before we cranked the bus to head home from our game Saturday (in Waynesboro), we were trying to find the Ocean Springs score,” said Bo Long, who has guided ECHS to the last two Class 5A state titles. “I couldn’t be prouder of what Ryne has already accomplished there in one year. He’s one of the most focused, dedicated, and hard-working people I know.”

Ryne Long guided the Ocean Springs Greyhounds to the first-ever Region 4-7A title and the corresponding top seed from that league in the inaugural Class 7A South State playoffs that begins on Friday. Long is a 2012 graduate of East Central High School, the headquarters for the Long clan that has had so much success on the diamond over the past four-plus decades. 

He is Gary’s son, who was not only a standout on the first-ever ECHS team in 1981 led by Rocky Long to win a state title but he also guided the Hornets to the 2008 state championship as well. Gary and Rocky are first cousins. Gary has been the ECHS athletics director for 12 years, and hired his nephew Bo to succeed him.

“I’ve been very blessed with the leaders in my life growing up, and I’m fortunate to have a family that has shaped me into the person and coach I am today,” Ryne Long said Monday. “That starts with my dad, who continues to help me along the way but is just as true for everyone else in the Long family.”

“We’re a coaching family for sure, and I have a lot of pride in where I’m from and what my family has accomplished from a coaching standpoint. What most probably don’t see is the family support as a whole, because to be successful in anything you have to have a great support system.”

A Long has been the head baseball coach at East Central for the past 48 years. Rocky Long stepped down in 1996 after 18 years, having started the Hornet dynasty with that state championship in 1981 in his third year leading the program. He became the AD and hired Gary Long to replace him, who had returned home to become his assistant a few years earlier. Rocky also remained as defensive coordinator in football and also served as the Hornet head football coach for a while.

The Hornets have only missed the state playoffs twice in the past 30 years, and have made the postseason for the past 15 seasons.

“The Long family has been synonymous with East Central baseball almost since the school was formed in the late 1950s,” Creg Stephenson, an ECHS graduate and now an award-winning sportswriter for the Alabama Media Group, said. “Not only do you have an unbroken string of coaches going back more than 40 years, but all those guys were star athletes when they were in high school.”

And after following Rocky in the top seat in the Hornet dugout, Gary Long was the architect of much of the success. 

“Gary took over a program in the mid-1990’s that was mediocre and immediately made it a program that was competitive at the highest level,” Bo Long, whose team begins defense of its back-to-back Class 5A state championships Friday, added. “All I’ve done is try not to mess it up over the last decade.”

Bo Long replaced his uncle Gary in 2013 after 12 years as his assistant coach. Bo played for Rocky Long as a head coach and while Gary was an assistant. While Bo, the only coach at ECHS to win two state titles, didn’t really want to talk about his success as head coach of the Hornets, Gary didn’t hesitate.

“Bo took over for me and has moved the program at East Central forward,” Gary Long, who led the Hornets to the state championship round three times, said. “He moved forward by coaching smart, handling pitching well and getting a lot of players involved. It’s pretty good to have a down year like this season with so little experience coming back after winning two state titles and still make the playoffs.”

Gary served as Hornet head coach for 16 seasons, winning the 2008 state title, and going 349-109 during that span. East Central won nine region titles and also played for the state championship in 1997 and 2009. He resigned as baseball coach in 2012 (but remained on as AD), so that he would have time to watch Ryne play at nearby South Alabama.

Ryne also realizes what Bo has accomplished during his 12 years at the helm of the Hornets.

“Bo does a great job, and he’s been so helpful to me not just since I started coaching but as a player as well,” Ryne added. “Everything about the program has continued to run at a high level since he took over. He’s been to several south state championships and they are the defending back-to-back state champions, so the success they’ve had under him speaks for itself.

“I’m just trying to continue the legacy they’ve built over the last 40 years and use what they’ve instilled in me to follow in their footsteps.”

Gary Long realizes what Ryne was going through in his first season as a head coach on the prep level.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted Ryne to go into coaching, but he made most of the steps I did.” Gary Long said. “But he loves it and works hard at it. As a dad, I am proud of him and the team.”

Going back to the 1960s, more than a dozen of the late Walter and Joyce Long’s descendants have played baseball for the Hornets and then went into the head coaching ranks in Jackson County.

“I’m sure a lot of communities like Hurley have similar families in different sports,” Stephenson concluded. “But for East Central baseball, it’s definitely the Longs. There’s no question about it.”

The success of the Longs on the diamond is unmatched by any other family in the long and storied baseball-rich history of the county, and it’s even stronger today than ever before.