New Rocktown High School softball coach looks to build program ‘from the ground up’

Blake Brown, who I’ve known since high school – Wilson Memorial, back in the 1980s; I don’t feel nearly that old – is the new varsity softball coach at Rocktown High School in Harrisonburg.

I hadn’t heard from Brown in a minute, but that’s because he’s been busy making the rounds of the softball circuit, starting out at the youth level out of necessity – he was living in Caroline County at the time, and his daughter signed up and wanted to play in a Little League program, but the league was short of coaches.

From there, I guess you can say, Brown got the bug.

He went on to serve as an assistant at Buffalo Gap High School here in Augusta County with another one of our high school buddies, Darren Pultz, before moving on to jobs at Chancellor High School and then back to Caroline.

Rocktown, which opened in 2024, will be heading into its third academic school year next month.

For the softball program, it’s been a rough go being a start-up – the Raptors were winless in each of their first two seasons.

Brown looks at the new gig as an opportunity to do something special.

“It’s a new school with one of the best softball facilities in the state. It’s a chance to build a program from the ground up,” he told me.

Which, that’s the attitude that you need to have, but it’s also true.

Harrisonburg didn’t skimp on the infrastructure at the new high school, which cost $112 million, all told.

There’s still a new car smell permeating the grounds.

The focus for the new softball coach, at the outset, will be on “changing the mentality.”

“We have to get our philosophy out in the community and get every girl, regardless of age, excited about playing softball at Rocktown High School,” Brown said. “We will have free clinics for the youth leagues. We will also have youth camps to let everyone see how we do things and get familiar with our coaching staff and our program.”

Another focus will be on building a staff.

This isn’t the kind of thing that you can do on your own.

Gotta have good people around you to help you build.

“Thankfully, I’ve been surrounded by excellent people, and have been lucky enough to have success everywhere I’ve been,” Brown said.