Heaps leaves Russellville baseball program, announces retirement after 10 history-making seasons

After ten years of building one of the most dominant and prestigious baseball programs in the state of Alabama, Russellville head baseball coach Chris Heaps informed the Russellville City School Board that he is retiring from the Alabama Public School System and pursuing an opportunity in the private sector in Birmingham.

Heaps’ retirement is effective as of August 1st  

The move comes less than two months after the Golden Tigers brought home their second straight (and fifth during Heaps’ tenure with Russellville) 5A state baseball championship.

While the decision is a massive blow to the Russellville athletic program and community alike, it comes with a good reason.

Heaps’ daughter recently welcomed their first child, and Heaps’ first grandchild, into the world and the move provides an opportunity to bring he and his wife Michele closer to their family who happen to live in Birmingham.

“Back last fall, we found out our daughter was pregnant and my wife and I talked about it and just said ‘we need to get to Birmingham’ once our boys finish,” Heaps said. “People will want to know why I’m leaving and it really just comes down to wanting to be with my family. I’ve got a new grandson that we’re excited to get closer to. And my wife has been chasing this baseball thing with me for 21 years and I’ve been coaching it for 26 years. She coaches me more than anyone does. She has been crucial to my success and she calls me out and is honest with me and she’s as much a part of this as I am.”

Of course the move comes one year earlier than anticipated for Heaps as his sons Brayden and Casen will be seniors in the upcoming school year and will now make the transition to a new program somewhere in the Birmingham area.

“Taking my kids out of Russellville right now was not the ideal situation but I just feel like there’s a great opportunity for them to grow and be challenged in a new setting,” Heaps said.

Russellville City Schools Superintendent Heath Grimes says that search for Heaps’ successor will include candidates from inside and outside the school system.

“We believe in what Coach Heaps has built and the way he has coached and led our players,” Grimes said per a press release. “Our goal will be to find someone to lead the baseball program that holds those same ideals and is focused on the same goals. And we know the program will be in good hands with Coach Stanley as we go through this process.”

And don’t think for a second that Heaps is just going to drop everything and leave the Russellville program in a bad state until a new coach comes along. 

In fact, as recently as Saturday, Heaps was doing his usual rounds on the field tending to every blade of grass and ensuring that the infield was still in pristine condition.

Heaps oversaw a decade of success during his time at Russellville. But before any blue maps were brought home and even before his first game, Heaps was unsure of what he should expect from the Golden Tiger school system, community and fanbase.

What he got exceeded his expectations both on the field and off it.

“When I got here, I didn’t know if I was going to like Russellville and I didn’t know if Russellville was going to like me. So we didn’t buy a house here. We rented one,” Heaps said. “And after about a year and a half, I told my wife that we had made the right decision. I knew things were about to start getting good for us and we had some really good young players. It was a fairytale for us and a love affair with Russellville for us.”

The five state championships (six appearances) and eclipsing the 300 career win mark while the head coach of the Golden Tigers will surely grab most of the attention of outsiders looking back on his tenure.

But for the 2021 5A head coach of the year, the thing that remains one of the more significant highlights of his time at Russellville goes a little deeper than trophies and championship rings.

The amount of work, dedication and attitude of the players he has coached over the years is one of the things Heaps says has stood out the most to him.

“What we’ve been able to do at Russellville is have guys buy into the process where it’s not about me, it’s about we,” Heaps said. “We didn’t win that first year. It was tough. Those guys could have given up or took a step back. But everything they learned from that experience led to the back-to-back-to-back down the road. And every team I have had here has been like that. Wanting to learn and get better and do whatever it took to be the best they can be.”

“As a coach, you spend a lot of time with your players and inevitably become a major influence in their life,” Heaps said in a press release. “I can’t thank the parents of these players enough for trusting me with their children and loaning them out to me to teach and to coach. It’s an extreme privilege I don’t take for granted.”

Since 2012, Heaps has had 32 players sign on to play college baseball. Add to that 25 all-state players, four honorable mentions, four All-American selections, two 5A players of the year, 5A hitter of the year and 5A pitcher of the year twice and it’s easy to see how the success was attained.

And of course, Heaps had a sturdy group of top-tier assistant coaches along the way to help reach their ultimate goals of where they wanted the program to go.

“If anyone wants to give credit to the winning, that goes to way more people than just me. That goes to an unbelievable staff of assistant coaches over the past ten years,” Heaps said. 

Before he was hired as the Russellville baseball head coach in 2012, Heaps wanted to make sure that his plans for the program were heard loud and clear before any hiring decision was made. 

And to hear him put it, the last decade of Russellville baseball could have looked a lot different had the first half of the decade not worked out as well as it did.

“When Rex Mayfield and Tim Guinn hired me, I told them that we were going to work like they’ve never seen Russellville work, we were going to raise money like you’ve never seen Russellville baseball raise and we were going to find the best teams we could find to play against,” Heaps said. “I told them that we might not win all of our games, but we weren’t going to lose a lot because we were going to learn a lot in the process. And I told them that if we weren’t competing for state championships in five years, I’d resign.”

Safe to say those first five years worked out pretty well.

Heaps was hired at Russellville as the head baseball coach for the 2012 season after one season as the head coach at Central Phenix City where he led the Red Devils to a final four appearance in his first and only season. 

As for that promise about competing for state championships within five years? Heaps was able to make good on that promise in just three seasons as the Golden Tigers not only competed for a state title, but won their first state baseball title in 2015 in what would be the first of three-in-a-row for Russellville.

The Golden Tigers would go on to win two more state titles, including a runner-up spot, over the rest of Heaps’ career with Russellville. And had it not been for the COVID-shortened season, the Golden Tigers might have added a sixth blue map. 

The legacy that Heaps leaves behind at Russellville is a lasting one that will be felt for generations of Golden Tigers to come. A decade that saw the Russellville baseball program go from a good one, to a great one, to becoming the epitome of successful high school baseball programs in the state of Alabama, all on Heaps’ watch. 

As Hartselle secured their place as the team of the 90’s in the state of Alabama and Cullman did the same in the 2000’s, Russellville made a compelling case to be in consideration for the team of the 2010’s with Heaps at the helm.

His chapter as one of the best coaches in the history of high school baseball in the state of Alabama is still being written. But his place as one of the best coaches and one of the best people to come through Russellville has been cemented and will always stand as such.

“This is the end of an era, but we in no way believe it is the end of the success we’ve seen for Russellville Baseball. Coach Heaps is leaving a legacy that our current players and coaches will uphold and pass along to future players, and we know that will lead to continued success for RHS Baseball in the years to come,” Grimes said.

Years down the road, when Heaps has hung up the turf shoes and handed over the lineup card for the last time, he will have a plethora of noteworthy moments during his time at Russellville to reminisce on. 

It will surely be difficult to single out one moment in particular, but there is one moment from his final season in the gold and black that will always stand out.

“It’s been an incredible ride and has been so much fun. I’ve never seen a community back a program the way this community does,” Heaps said. “I came from Hartselle where we won a lot of games and a lot of championships. I’ve seen a lot of impressive crowds and what I saw this year and last year from our community was just remarkable. I’ve never seen a crowd change a series the way they did. When our crowd took over that series, that just proved how much this community cares and supports this program and that’s something that will stay with me.”