Lake long time baseball coach Greg Wilker retiring

After coaching baseball 37 years at Lake, Greg Wilker is stepping down, but he will continue on as an assistant varsity football coach.

Wilker’s career record stands at 644-351 and he is the 15th winningest baseball coach in Ohio High School Athletic Association history. Wilker was inducted into the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in January, 2016.

Under Wilker, the Flyers have won 11 league championships, 22 sectional titles, six district titles and one regional title. His 2001 team lost to Youngstown Ursuline, 6-1, in the Division III state semifinals.

Wilker taught business at Lake for 35 years before retiring in 2018, and he’s coached the offensive and defensive lines for the football team for 34 years. 

 “The big thing about kids is, as long as you show you care about them, kids are kids,” Wilker told The Press. “They know my entire staff cares about them, not just about wins and losses. They want them to become better young men.” 

Wilker ended his baseball coaching career with a bang, too. Last spring the Flyers (23-6 overall, 13-1 NBC) stole 119 bases and only got thrown out nine times on their way to winning a Northern Buckeye Conference championship. Wilker said it was a team that surprised even him.

“Early on I thought it was going to be a year when if you were 10-4 or 11-3 it might get you a share of the title,” Wilker said. “We played well in the league and the big thing is we finished strong. Before we lost to Archbold (tournament), we had won 10 in a row at that point.” (— includes file copy from a feature written by Press contributing sportswriter Mark Griffin.)