After 37 years Tony Farlow is finally planning to call it a career at the end of Purvis’ baseball season.
Farlow’s career has featured him winning over 700 games, a feat he achieved earlier this season, and coached in 10 state championships and won five.
“We’ve won our share of games,” Farlow told The Pine Belt News. “I’ve been very fortunate in at least a couple of schools where I had baseball talent. I had good assistant coaches. Sometimes I get the credit because I’m the head coach, but you kind of have to have the right chemistry, the right players, and a lot of times things have to go your way to win a state title.”
Farlow, who holds a career record of 705-360, began his career at Lumberton, where, in his first year, he won the 1988 state championship and played for it two more times.
After a stint at Richton, Farlow took the job at Purvis, where he has spent the last 27 years creating a powerhouse that he helped win four state titles in 2005, 2006, 2012, and 2023.
“I don’t know if I’m going to take the credit for that,” Farlow said. “I just know that I was at the right place at the right time with good, solid baseball players, good assistants, an administration that backed us, and parents that supported baseball. I feel fortunate to have spent 27 years at Purvis.”
According to Farlow, the key to his success was ensuring that he was fair to his players and treated them respectfully.
“When I was in college, I helped coach Dixie boys teams, and I had seen some good coaches and bad coaches,” Farlow said. “I just felt like I wanted to be one of those coaches that treated my kids the way I would want to be treated if I was playing for them. I’ve just tried to be fair, and I can’t say I always have, but I’ve tried to be fair to the kids. I’ve tried to have a good work ethic. We work hard and play hard. I always try to stress to them that if you hustle and work hard, then usually winning and losing takes care of itself.”
The main reason Farlow plans to retire is so that he can move on to the next stage of his life.
“I’ve felt like in the back of my mind for the last couple of years. I know I’m going to miss it, but there’s no doubt about that, especially the caliber of baseball that we have played in the last couple of years. I’ll miss that.”
“Everybody says it’s because you are losing the Parker boys and all those seniors, and that has nothing to do with it. My funnest years of coaching are when you graduate everybody, and it’s a rebuild year (because) if you win 10 games, then it was fun doing it. At this point in my life, I just want to move and do different things like fish, hunt, camp, play golf and watch Purvis play baseball. I just want to do some different things, and if I miss it too bad, then I’ll see if somebody needs an assistant coach.”
Purvis will face Greene County in the second round of the Class 4A playoffs.
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