The Tim Leeper Field

With the baseball field holding many memories and games throughout the years, Fair Grove High School has proudly called their field the ‘Tim Leeper Field’ in honor of his baseball coaching in the past years at the school. 

Tim Leeper started his teaching and coaching career at Fair Grove in 1979, and coached for the next 31 years. Leeper described his experience at Fair Grove as a coach and teacher, “I was very blessed that the Lord put me in this community and school, I could not have found a better place for me to spend my entire coaching career.”

As a coach who has been here for many years, Leeper described what it was like to be here for so long, “Many of my players over the years have had kids of their own come through Fair Grove, and it has been really fun to watch the next generation compete athletically.” 

A fellow Fair Grove Baseball coach, Mr. Overstreet described his outlook on coaching baseball, and the sport itself that is passed down to many coaches, “Historically, the baseball program has had a lot of success and it has produced a lot of talented baseball players. However, what has been most important about the program is the past and present coaches have used their platform as the head coach to teach their players about life and dealing with adversity.” 

Overstreet continued to describe the culture of Fair Grove Baseball, “We have been fortunate at Fair Grove to have had great coaches, past and present, leading our baseball program. That includes assistant coaches as well as head coaches. Because of longevity and strong leadership from those individuals, the culture of the program has been very strong over the last 50 years.”

Coaching comes with many rewards, Leeper expressed his own personal take away from coaching baseball at Fair Grove, “Probably the most rewarding thing about coaching is the relationships you keep with your former players for a lifetime.” 

After the baseball field was named after Coach Leeper, he described his feelings about this incredible honor, “I can’t begin to describe how humbled I was when they named the field after me. I think that anybody that has that honor bestowed upon them doesn’t really feel deserving… but I am very grateful.” 

Leeper reminisced and expressed all the sports he was involved in for Fair Grove, “I coached or assisted in about every men’s sport at Fair Grove, and enjoyed them all. However, I fell in love with baseball as a little boy and it opened many doors for me and the rest of my life.” 

Tim Leeper has set a high standard for future Fair Grove coaches who will continue to push the program further, by teaching athletes how to create relationships, and overall becoming better people.