Last week, a retired Woodland High School baseball coach was surprised with a heartfelt reunion with former players celebrating and remembering his contributions to Woodland sports.
Jerry Whitaker coached Woodland High baseball from 1968 until 1991. For the past few years, Whitaker has collected photos, shirts and other memorabilia to create an in-home museum chronicling his contributions to Woodland’s sports history. On Sunday, July 28, he was surprised by a visit from nearly 50 former players and assistant coaches, some who traveled from across the country, to his home in Oregon.
“I couldn’t believe the turn out we had,” Whitaker said following the visit. “Everybody was so friendly. It was just a great situation.”
During the visit, Whitaker and his former players reminisced about old games and past experiences. Randy Sorensen, a 1978 Woodland High School graduate who was part of the surprise get together, recalled Whitaker’s impact on local baseball. Whitaker was the main party involved in paving and readying Woodland’s baseball field, which was dedicated in 1975.
“[He] built a great venue for a lot of us to play baseball on when we really didn’t have a baseball field,” Sorensen recalled. “That’s the memory we all had of him, was creating this thing out of nothing, and we got to play on it. It was our own little Field of Dreams.”
Whitaker’s museum collection features signed baseballs, jerseys, caps, sports pages and the plaque dedicated to him for his contributions to the baseball field. The collection prominently includes photos of his former teams and games. Whitaker was elated to look through his collection with former players last week.
“I was overwhelmed with how quickly it all happened,” Whitaker said. “I have been putting it together for several years now. I coached middle school [football] and high school [baseball], and the museum itself covers our life story.”
In 1998, Whitaker was included in the Woodland High School Hall of Fame for his contributions to the school’s history.
