Randy BroomeThe last remaining piece of Warren Central’s 2001 Class 5A state championship team is exiting the dugout.

Randy Broome ended his seven-year tenure as Viking head baseball coach on Monday night. He will move into administration as an assistant principal at Vicksburg High School.

“Coach (Curtis) Brewer always told us if you want to stay in education, get your master’s degree,” said Broome, who will finish coursework in June in Educational Leadership. “It will give me more chances and opportunities than just holding a bachelor’s degree.”

Broome started coaching as Ray Burroughs’ assistant at Vicksburg High in 1997 while Broome was doing his student teaching. He spent a year at VHS before becoming Sam Temple’s assistant at WC.

The team won the school’s first ever state championship in 2001 and Broome took over the program after Temple left for Clinton High.

Broome guided WC to within a victory of a state championship appearance in 2005 and pushed Vicksburg to an elimination game in the 2006 playoffs.

The last two years, though, the Vikings have struggled. Back-to-back losing seasons, two small children and a loss of coaching desire led Broome to his decision.

“Coaching baseball for me has been awesome. This community and this school have been great,” Broome said. “But to me, some of the things I possessed as a coach years ago aren’t as strong now. I could tell it was time the last couple years to start going another route.

“I’ve put my time in as a baseball coach, but now it’s time to get someone in here with a little more gung-ho to get this program back to where it is supposed to be.”

Current assistant coaches John Hardy and Tipp Nutt will run the summer league schedules as the Vikings will have both a junior and senior team. A search is ongoing for Broome’s replacement.

Whoever is hired will get a team fairly young in age but with a wealth of needed experience. The Vikings won only eight games this year. Five of those came against lesser division competition Greenville and Provine. Mixed in was a 10-run rule victory over Clinton, a Class 5A North State semifinalist this year, but also some very bad losses.

The Vikings finished second in Division 3-5A and lost two straight games in the double-elimination playoff tournament in Southaven.

Broome, a Baton Rouge native, played on Meridian Community College’s first junior college world series team. He played at Mississippi College for two seasons before moving into teaching.

In his seven years at WC, Broome has a 113-103 record.

“After a while, I realized it wasn’t fun anymore,” Broome said. “I could write a book about this game and the opportunities it has given me and the places I have seen and people I have met. It’s been unbelievable. I think there is a time in people’s lives when they know it’s time to go down the next road.”