New coach brings decades of experience to Legion squad

WASILLA — Myrl “Boone” Thompson has been around the game of baseball for nearly three decades. So, when Steve Mossburgh stepped down as head coach of the Alaska Road Warriors American Legion team during the middle of last season, Thompson was happy to step in.

“Forty-five kids try out for the team, and that’s an impressive number for American Legion,” said Thompson, looking to open the Legion’s first game of the summer tonight. “When you have numbers like that you get more and more talent. You go back 10 years in baseball in the Valley, there just wasn’t a lot of it after Little League.”

Thompson takes over this year as manager for his first full campaign and hopes to build on the successful history of the program left by Mossburgh. Mat Su Valley baseball has grown in recent years to be more competitive statewide. Thompson, a former Wasilla High School coach, inherits a program he helped coach to a fourth place finish at state last year.

“In hindsight, I’m glad that I did break in a little last year,” Thompson said. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s not related to playing the game that the manager has to do. The Mossburghs were doing the incredible job with an amount of work. A lot of people didn’t know about it. I’m still learning. It keeps you busy. (Being post manager) is almost a full-time job for two months.”

Thompson played baseball for 13 years and has coached all levels of Little League, PONY League, high school and now American Legion. Thompson is also a former Mat Su Borough School District School Board member and was an Olympic wrestler.

“Back in my day, everybody on the team knew the game backwards and forward. Kids these days, their biggest weakness is analyzing other teams or the opposing pitcher,” he said. “We used to go watch them play before we faced them. I want to try and bring back that mental aspect of the game and dial that in their minds.”

Thompson brings his wealth of Valley coaching experience to the Legion team and said he wants to use a well-rounded team to approach competition.

“It just depends on the team you’re playing, how you manage the game to be successful,” Thompson said.

Contact Tim Rockey at 352-2252 or tim.rockey@frontiersman.com. Follow @trockeynews on Twitter.