LEE ENGERT (Jun 1947)

Lee Engert may have been one of the best second basemen never to play professional baseball.

He had a long amateur baseball career which included his time at Valparaiso University, where he set records in batting average (.441) and in stolen bases. A tour in the Marine Corps followed where he was the only player on the base team not to have signed a professional contract. Then there were twelve years with the Kutis baseball team where he played second base on two All-City Championship teams.

Lee was a teacher and coach at Ritenour High School. In his seventeen years as head baseball coach at Ritenour his teams won twelve League Championships and two State Championships. He retired from Ritenour after thirty-five years and went to Chaminade College Prep High School.

A Lee Engert team at Chaminade won the State Championship in 1992 and compiled a record of 28 wins and 0 losses. Another State championship for Chaminade followed in 1998.And still another State Championship in 2001, won by a Lee Engert coached team at John Burroughs High School.

Lee’s lifetime coaching career record is 413 wins and 137 losses for a winning percentage of .750.

The baseball team at Ritenour High School plays on Lee Engert Field.

He was selected as the NCAA High School Coach of the Year in 1973.

Lee is a member of the Valparaiso University Hall of Fame, as well as the Halls of Fame of Chaminade High School, Ritenour High School, The National High School Baseball Association, The Amateur Baseball Association and The Missouri High School Coaches Association.

Lee coached his teams by showing them the basics of baseball and of life. They learned about sacrifice and the price to be paid for victory through his code of personal values and goals to be achieved.

One of his players wrote that the things he accomplished can’t be quantified because they went far beyond coaching. He was a mentor-a leader who coached boys, but created men.