Baseball: Tom Parisi resigns as Dundee-Crown coach
By Erik Jacobsen ejacobsen@stmedianetwork.com May 24, 2012 10:14PM
Updated: July 3, 2012 10:08AM
Dundee-Crown once again has a vacancy atop its baseball program after coach Tom Parisi informed his team he’ll be stepping down after one season at the helm.
Parisi shared his decision with his players after the Chargers bowed out of the Class 4A Huntley Regional with a 12-2 semifinal loss to Crystal Lake South on Wednesday. His departure means Dundee-Crown will begin a search for what will be the varsity baseball program’s fourth coach in six years.
Parisi, 26, cited the challenge that comes with balancing his coaching and teaching professions as the main reason he is stepping aside. The third-year teacher is an adaptive physical education instructor who travels to several schools throughout District 300. In addition to hoping to start a family, he plans to pursue a master’s degree and an administrative role, and he believes it would be too time consuming to continue coaching while trying to reach those goals.
“At this stage in my life financially and professionally I’m not going to be able to do both (teaching and coaching),” Parisi said. “It’s a shame because I really do love coaching and the baseball part of it, but it’s not fair to the boys to not be able to put in the time needed for the team to be successful. It’s also not fair to my students to not put the time in that it takes for them to be successful.”
Dundee-Crown finished with a 9-21-1 record this spring as it struggled in the highly-competitive Fox Valley Conference. The Chargers were one year removed from a 24-14 campaign that resulted in a regional championship under former coach Jon Sawyer, who stepped aside after a three-year run as D-C’s coach citing concerns about job security. Sawyer now works at Grayslake North.
Parisi, a 2004 Conant graduate, previously worked as an assistant basketball coach at Jacobs and an assistant softball coach at Dundee-Crown.
“I’m a teacher first and a coach second,” Parisi said. “Once I’m where I need to be professionally I do plan on returning as a head coach somewhere. Until then I’ll maybe enjoy coaching at the lower levels. When the time is appropriate I’ll step up (as a head coach) and do a program right.”
