Former coach and grand-mother were biggest influences for Marina’s Toby Hess

Marina baseball coach Toby Hess with Athletic Director Michelle Spencer. (Photo courtesy CIF)

One of the most respected baseball coaches in Orange County, Marina’s Toby Hess, was among the recipients of the Jim Staunton Champions for Character Award.

The 16th annual program was held Monday night at The Grand Conference Center in Long Beach.

“The two most significant influences in my life are a gentleman named John Buck who taught me how to coach, and my grandmother who taught me how to care,” Hess told OC Sports Zone Thursday.

“Both of them insisted that coaching baseball was secondary to instilling values in young men. She was great at constructing compliments that uplifted those she cared about.  He was wonderful at inspiring the courage and conviction that will be required from future citizens. Each day I try and make both of them proud of what I do. This award helps to validate my efforts to impress them.  They both used to say that I was a sponge.

“As far as I am concerned, I just sopped up all the lessons they shared with me and spent the rest of my life wringing them out on the rest of the world.”

Hess was nominated by Athletic Director Michelle Spencer, who was also a recipient of the award.

“Toby Hess has been a coach and teacher at Marina for the last three years and he has shown me over and over that character and class are what matters most to him,” Spencer wrote in the program for the event. “His baseball program is a ‘first class program’ and he has not wavered in his dedication to making it just that. Toby invests his time, not just teaching the game of baseball, but teaching student athletes the skills they need to be great human beings….He makes students believe in themselves.”