New PHS baseball coach hopes to build powerful program
By: Justin Feil
When you’re from Toms River, baseball is like breathing. You start almost the moment you’re born, and it’s pretty much part of your entire life.
The Princeton High baseball team has a lifer in Greg Short, its new head coach who takes over for John Miranda after the former coach was called away for duty with the Marines. Short grew up in Toms River, played baseball at Toms River East before continuing his playing career as a pitcher at Long Island University under highly successful coach Frank Giannone, who is just five wins shy of his 500th career victory.
Since graduation, he spent a year coaching at Ocean County College and three more at Monmouth University before helping coach at Jackson Township. Last year, he assisted John Musolf at Manchester Township as the team went 21-8, and lost on a last-inning home run to eventual Group II champion Audubon.
"I was blessed to work with a coach who wanted my opinion," Short said. "He’d say, ‘I’ll explain it, but then you give your take on it.’ We really gelled and it was a real good experience."
Now Short has taken a step to the next level by moving to his first high school head coaching position. He’d like to bring some of the success he’s already lived through to a PHS baseball team building off one of its strongest seasons in recent memory. The Little Tigers were 13-11-1 last season, made the state tournament for the first time since 1984 and included in those 13 wins was an enormous 2-1 upset of eventual Group IV champion Steinert.
"I find it hard to believe that we won’t be successful," said Short, who nevertheless must fill the holes left by eight graduated starters. "I don’t want to set a goal like .500, because there are other ways to measure it. I don’t want it measured just by that. We’re making gains. We straining to become an upper echelon team."
It’s something still a little bit away from happening. But ultimately, Short says, he’d like to see Princeton mentioned in the same breath as Steinert and the Toms River baseball factories. And he has an idea how that begins.
"I’d like to see the excitement grow in the lower levels," said the 31-year-old, who still resides in Toms River but teaches at Emily Fisher School for sixth through 10th grades in Trenton. "I understand there are Babe Ruth and Little League programs, but at the same time we don’t have a freshman program at the high school level. That would really help; it would help develop some players that maybe aren’t quite ready yet."
Short is happy about the reception that he’s gotten from his young squad, and is looking forward to continuing the development that began from Day One.
"I spent four years coaching at the college level. I don’t want to slow down. I want to speed up their thought process," Short said. "I’m using all the signs and signals from college. They’re going to pick it up. They’re bright kids. I’ve seen their SAT scores.
"My goal coming in," he added, "was to pick the brains of my assistant coaches, see where people should go and then move people around as needed. We stressed the fundamentals. That way, we get to see what sort of foundation they have and polish whatever needs to be."
And while Short was a pitcher at LIU, he has a background in a variety of positions, everything except first base, for which he was, perhaps ironically, considered too short. So far, he’s surprised by what he’s seen of the Little Tigers’ fundamentals and how much they’ve improved.
"Defensively and offensively we’re farther along than I thought we’d be," he said before Thursday’s first scrimmage of the season. "I’d definitely love to have some more practices before we play, but we’ll make do. Hopefully, I’ll see an arm on the mound. Hopefully someone will surprise me. I just want to see them apply what they’ve learned."
Being a New Jersey native, Short had heard of Steinert, but the rest of the Colonial Valley Conference is a mystery, even the conference itself was news to him. A spring trip to Florida should have the Little Tigers fine-tuned for anyone they face upon their return and ready to put PHS on the state’s baseball map.
"We’re bringing the entire varsity plus 12 or 13 JV kids," Short said. "We just want to get some pride in the sport. Other than lacrosse, swimming and tennis, there hasn’t been a lot of success. They haven’t done much other than in the single sports. I want to see some team success.
"I want these kids to stick together. My goal is not to keep the kids on the field for six hours. We want to have fun and I think we’re having that."
The fun is just a start to what Greg Short hopes to be a budding baseball power, something that he’s been plenty familiar with his entire life.