SPORTS & MORE: KEY WEST’S MIGUEL MENENDEZ FINDS SUCCESS AT TAMPA JESUIT

Miguel Menendez had some good teams during his eight-year tenure as Key West High School baseball coach. Then he was gone, replaced by the coach he had replaced, Ralph Henriquez Jr. 

I asked Miguel, who was Henriquez’s assistant for five years before taking over the head job, to name his favorite Conch team. “That’s like asking someone to name their favorite child,” he told me as we chatted one evening last week. But he relented. “I liked the 2011 team a lot,” he said. “We won the district that year. Michael Henriquez was a senior. Donnie Monsalvatge was the first baseman. Darren Miller was a freshman. So was Steven Wells. We won the first game in the regionals, then lost to Archbishop McCarthy.” 

After coaching the Conchs, he took a year off. “I wanted to see how I felt about coaching,” he told me. “I continued to teach at the high school. And I found out I missed coaching too much.” So when Terry Rupp, who had been his coach at the University of Tampa, told him about a coach’s opening at Tampa Jesuit High School, Menendez applied and was hired.

He was no stranger to Tampa. In fact, he was born there on May 30, 1977. A month later, his family moved to his father’s hometown of Key West. So, no, he isn’t a born Conch. He played in the Key West youth baseball leagues, although not tee ball. “My grandfather, John Menendez, wouldn’t let me,” Miguel remembered. His grandfather put in a pitching machine behind his store and Miguel started swinging a bat at the age of 3. “He wouldn’t let me wear batting gloves either. When I was old enough, I played for his team, Jon’s Grocery. And I read ‘The Science of Hitting,’ by Ted Williams, my grandfather’s favorite player. I probably have only read the Bible more than I have read that book.” 

Miguel went on to become one of Key West’s all-time baseball stars. He still holds the school’s season hits record with 57 when the Conchs won the 1995 4A state championship. He had a total of 102 hits in his Conch career, second all-time. Then he went on to more successes at the University of Tampa, playing first base and catching as the Spartans won the 1997 national Division II championship. As a junior and again as a senior, he was named All-Conference. 

After graduating from UT, he was a substitute teacher in Hillsborough County before coming back to Key West as a teacher and coach.

At Tampa Jesuit, Menendez was following long-time coach Richie Warren, who directed his last team, in 2014, to the state championship, the school’s fourth such title. Miguel has kept the winning tradition going, capturing the district title in each season. 

His first year, he did it living alone in Tampa, while his wife, Lori, and their three children stayed behind in Key West. Soon, though, they joined him in Tampa. Lori has continued her job with First State Bank, working remotely in the online banking department.. 

Their oldest child, Miguel Jr., and his father created quite a stir when, in Miguel Jr.’s junior year, his father cut him during baseball tryouts. “Probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life, actually,” the coach has said. Miguel Jr., now 19, did make the team his senior year and has gone on to Tallahassee Junior College. No baseball there, though. “I think he’s having too much fun to play baseball,” said his father. 

Daughter Elizabeth Rose, 18, is a senior soccer player at the Academy of Holy Name, which, Miguel says, is like a sister school to Jesuit. Son Jackson, 13, is in seventh grade and playing several sports, including baseball. 

In 2019, Miguel Menendez reached the pinnacle of his coaching career when his 5-A Tigers won the school’s fifth state championship. The next year, the team started the season 9-0 and was ranked by Collegiate Baseball as the No. 1 high school team in the nation. Then the ceiling caved in, the COVID-19 ceiling, as the season was called to a halt. Last season, 2021, the team was 21-1, losing only to IMG in the regular season and 23-2 overall with an eliminating loss in regional semifinals.

Veteran sports columnist Ralph Morrow says the only sport he doesn’t follow is cricket. That leaves plenty of others to fill his time.