By JON JOHNSON

When longtime Lurleen B. Wallace Community College of Andalusia baseball coach Steve Helms wasn't out on the waters fishing as a youth, he was playing sports.

"My family had a fishing business, so we were raised on the water, so I fished and played sports," Helms said. "I was outside all of the time."

He's still out there teaching the game he loves and for his success over the past 32 years will be inducted into the Wiregrass Sports Hall of Fame on Aug. 12 during a ceremony at the Wiregrass Rehabilitation Center in Dothan. Joining Helms in the Class of 2023 will be Floyd Griffin, Tony Bowick, Cindy Hawthorne, Brad Baxter and Bubba Johnson.

Before becoming a successful coach, Helms was a three-sport standout at Panama City Christian High School in playing football, basketball and baseball before earning a baseball scholarship to Huntingdon College in Montgomery.

"I was a left-handed pitcher, so that gave me a little bit of an advantage," Helms said. "I was probably better in basketball, to be honest, but I'm a little short for basketball, so baseball was probably where I needed to go."

While at Huntingdon, Helms excelled as a pitcher under coach Steve Shartzer and began thinking about a coaching career.

"Probably my junior year I fell in love with it," Helms said of baseball. "I got a leadership award and stuff like that, so I kind of took some ownership of the pitching staff and just fell in love with the game itself."

Helms spent one year as a graduate assistant at Huntingdon and then took a job as an assistant coach at LBW for a year before being elevated to head coach in 1990, where he's been ever since.

"I was six or seven years older than the players, which was a challenge to have the separation as a coach to the player," Helms said of the early years in charge. "But I was blessed with some wonderful kids who were mature enough to handle it my first couple of years. I just had to grow into coaching...I had to learn on the job."

Helms has compiled a record of 1,069 wins to 681 losses over the years in keeping the Saints a competitive program in the junior college ranks. LBW advanced to the NJCAA Division I World Series in 2004, where it finished runner-up, and also played in the World Series in 2009.

Helms has been named the NJCAA Division II National Tournament Coach of the Year, the Alabama Community College Conference Coach of the Year, the Southern Division Coach of the Year and the Southeast District Coach of the Year during his career.

He describes himself as an "old-school" baseball coach.

"I would say I'm pretty aggressive with the kids," Helms said. "I'm hard on the kids, and I do that because I think baseball is a way to teach them life skills. I think life is full of adversity and I need to teach them how to have some tough skin to handle life."

"Now, I'm hard on them but I love them. Be where you're supposed to be, your grades are demanded and there is a standard you're going to play to and live to. I think it works from the past players."

"They don't always understand it while they're here, but five years down the road I get a lot of emails and phone calls that say, 'Coach, I've figured it out...I understand it now,' which makes me happy."

Helms has also served as athletics director for the past 30 years, which has been challenging but rewarding.

"In Alabama we've been through some ups and downs with budgets, so it's been tough from that end because we are a small school," Helms said. "Now we're at 2,000 students and we have four campuses. The toughest part of being an A.D. is the budgets."

"But I'm blessed Coach (Ricky) Knight has been our basketball coach for 34 years. Of course we just started volleyball two years ago and got Janie (Wiggins). She's wonderful. Now we've started cross country and golf back. We had shut them down probably the year before I got here."

Helms feels blessed to be part of LBW family.

"LBW is a wonderful place," he said. "When you get an honor like this, you reflect back. There are two things I reflect back on - the college itself from the administration, faculty and staff - they're servant-minded.

"And then the other reflection is my mistakes. Did some of my mistakes hurt or discourage a young man? I disappoint myself sometimes looking back at some of my mistakes if that makes sense. Which that is how you grow is through mistakes."

He offers advice to young coaches entering the business.

"Just set your standard and don't let nobody change your standard and do everything with integrity," Helms said. "If you do it right and do it with integrity, it's all worth it at the end."

Helms is honored to be joining the Wiregrass Sports Hall of Fame. He was named to the Alabama Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2015.

"To me, this is an LBW honor because it's a school thing," Helms said. "It's not about me. I get the glory from it, but it's such a team honor. I'm just so proud of LBW and that's what it's about to me. But to be honored, all I can say is, 'Wow.'"