Avants takes LCHS baseball helm in strangest of seasons

First season cut short – Seth Avants took over the helm of Lawrence County High School baseball this year but the season was cut short by the threat of coronavirus. Avants and his family have been around Lawrence County athletics for several years. Avants has served as an assistant football coach. Above, Avants and his two sons on the LCHS baseball field earlier in the year

“As much as we’d love to be playing,” Coach Avants said, “baseball certainly takes a back seat to people’s lives and health. Hopefully, this situation will come to a positive resolution and life can get back to normal.
“I do hate this for my players,” Avants continued. “They put an awful lot of work into preparations for this season. I especially hate it for our seniors.”
Last summer, Avants, a Bogue Chitto native, was named to be the sixth head baseball coach in Lawrence County High School history. His promotion to head coach was a popular development among Lawrence County baseball circles. Avants was a valued assistant to former LCHS coaches Josh Garrett and Andrew Haygood.
Avants attacked his new position with zeal. While also serving as co-defensive coordinator during Lawrence County High’s excellent football season, Avants managed to put his baseball Cougars through a stringent off-season workout program. The coach and players worked to make dramatic improvements to the Jimmie Davis Park playing surface.
While in high school, Avants participated in baseball, football, and basketball. His baseball skills carried him to Copiah-Lincoln Community College, where he played two seasons for Lawrence County native Keith Case. At Bogue Chitto, however, Avants’ football reputation equaled his baseball work. He was a speedy, standout quarterback for Coach Garreth Sartin’s Bobcat football teams. Avants graduated from William Carey University and serves as a math instructor at LCHS.
Avants and his wife, Chassity (also a Bogue Chitto native), are the parents of sons Hayden and Ketch, both elementary students at Bogue Chitto. The couple recently made public the news of the coming arrival of a third son in August. Chassity, a registered nurse, is in her second year as Health Science & Nursing instructor at Brookhaven High School.
Avants has taken over an LCHS baseball program that has had just one losing season in its prior 32 years of existence. Though a life-long Lincoln Countian, Avants seemed well-versed in his program’s history.
“Lawrence County has been playing good baseball my whole life,” he said. “I want my teams to keep up that tradition. Obviously, we want to win. But, more than that, I want a team that is going to show up at the ballpark and compete every pitch, no matter the opponent and no matter the score, both in great times and in hard times.
“If Tony Davis, Cory Keyes, Josh Garrett, or Bowie Davis—and any of their past players—show up at Jimmie Davis Park, I want them to look out here and see a program they’re proud of.”