Bob Flint, who has coached baseball for 55 years, plans on being an ‘assistant in the house’

Bob Flint joined the Northwood staff as pitching coach in 2019. (File photo: OC Sports Zone, Tim Burt).

Bob Flint has stepped aside from coaching high school baseball more than once.

After 55 years, Flint won’t be coaching baseball this spring as he helps out his wife, Jeanne, who is recovering from recent back surgery.

“I’m home to be the assistant coach in the house,” Flint said Monday. “She’s (his wife) doing well, but it’ll be late February or March before I’m comfortable spending the amount of time needed to be a quality coach.”

The former head coach at Western, Irvine and Woodbridge, has tried to retire in the past, and he kept returning because of his love of the game.

His latest stint was as an assistant at Saddleback College. Before that, he was at Northwood, after retiring as Woodridge’s head coach. He has also held assistant coaching positions at Orange Coast College and El Toro.

“People were on me, I just fail at it,” Flint said of retirement plans when he came out of retirement to coach at Northwood. “We all fail at something, I’m a total failure at retirement.”

But Flint won’t be an assistant coach this season, at least not at the start of the year.

“I’ll be at games second guessing my pals’ coaching moves,” said Flint, who will turn 77 in February. “I’m gonna somehow keep a hand in ‘the game.'”

—-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com