The search for a leader isn’t just about baseball. It’s about a promise.
During my seven years of varsity high school and collegiate baseball, I had six different coaches.
Let that sink in. Six voices. Six philosophies. Six different sets of hands trying to mold a young player who was just looking for something solid to hold onto. I do not want that for our kids here in Bohol. I refuse to let that happen.
I still remember the 1990s, watching a very effective MLB Coaches Envoy Program in Switzerland. It brought American coaches to Swiss clubs, and it was remarkable—for a moment. These coaches would arrive, elevate the fundamentals of their players to new heights, and then vanish.
The coaching assignments were limited to 3-4 months. I watched those Swiss players soar, only to have the rug pulled out when their mentor packed his bags.
The development didn’t just stall; it cratered. And it broke something in those players that’s hard to name—a trust, maybe, that the ground beneath their cleats would stay firm. It had a negative impact, a wound that festered because the healer left too soon.
I know firsthand how frustrating it is to learn the fundamentals from a new coach every year. It’s not good for adults. It’s even worse for kids.
Here on our island, The Coconuts understand a hard truth: MLB clubs are focused on the communities in their own backyard. I get that. We are an ocean away from that machinery. That’s precisely why my dream coaching hire came from a different vision.
The main reason I wanted Japanese or Korean head coaches—besides their profound knowledge of the game—was the disciplined intensity of their baseball markets. But getting long-term commitments from the former NPB and KBO players I crave has been a monumental challenge.
The phone calls, the Zoom meetings, the near-misses… they all shimmer with hope and then dissolve into the reality that a two-year relocation to a developing baseball frontier is a terrifying ask for a legend comfortable at home.
My vision excited me: a coaching house, a true melting pot of baseball minds from North America and Asia, a think tank in paradise dedicated to building the first native-born Filipino Major League superstar.
However, it would not be fair to our kids to have a new head coach every 3-6 months. That revolving door is a betrayal. I will not let them taste transformative knowledge only to have it snatched away with the tourist season.
The Coconuts need a head baseball coach and a head softball coach who want to challenge themselves over the long haul. Not a vacation. A new phase of life.
Coaches who believe they can develop elite teenage prospects not in a sprawling Arizona complex, but on a diamond carved out of the tropics. Coaches who are intrigued with relocating to an island paradise that welcomed more than 1.4 million tourists last year, but who will stay long after the tourists’ sunscreen has been washed off.
I’m looking for coaches who want to escape the “rat race” lifestyle and the suffocating costs of living in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Europe. The weary. The curious. The ones who look at their pension or their savings and wonder if there’s a final, defining chapter left instead of a slow fade.
Come to Bohol, and you will fall in love. The Filipino athlete is special. The young talent on the island is incredible. These kids are already battle-tested in life—forged by poverty, by earthquakes that shake their homes, by super typhoons that tear off roofs, and by the quiet threat of King Cobras in the grass.
What’s a high fastball or a rise ball on a 3-2 count to a child who has stared down real terror? They will not complain about working hard to achieve their dreams. Their resilience and determination will reignite your own.
They just need the right coaches. They need a lighthouse, not a firefly. They need a coach who understands that “long-term” is measured in seasons changing, in birthdays celebrated, in trust built whisper by whisper on a dugout bench.
This is the “less” part of my column’s name. Less talk. Less excuses. Less searching for the perfect, short-term fix that scratches our itch but leaves a scar on a kid.
It’s about Moore now. More commitment. More vision. More heart.
The sun sets over the chocolate hills, and tomorrow it will rise on another day of searching. If you’re the one reading this, you already know.
The game is calling you to the edge of the world. Pack your life, bring your patience, and leave your exit strategy behind. The kids are here, waiting for the one coach who won’t say goodbye.
