At age 46, Hamilton still has a lot of life to live and even more work to do. It just won’t be in the dugout for the Randall Raiders.
After leading the Raiders to their winningest season in school history and the UIL Class 4A state semifinals, Hamilton handed in his letter of resignation a week later and will now be pursuing another career in the financial field. He will be working with his wife Laura, who is a financial planner.
Hamilton said the decision to leave coaching for the business world wasn’t spontaneous.
“There’s no easy decision on this,” Hamilton said. “My wife and I started talking about this, and I always wanted a chance to win a state championship. We thought this year would be that type of opportunity, but this has been something we’ve been talking about for three years now. It’s not anything rash or anything we came up with out of a hunch.”
Hamilton’s coaching career ended with a 15-5 loss to Texarkana-Liberty Eylau at the state semifinal in Austin on June 7. It was a disappointing end to an otherwise near-perfect season at Randall, making its second trip to the state tournament.
Randall stood head and shoulders above the field in District 4-4A, going 14-0 in winning the district championship. The Raiders won 32 straight games at one point en route to a 38-5 record.
It was also a year of personal milestones for Hamilton, who notched his 400th career win. Now, after 425 career victories over 20 seasons (the last 15 at Randall after five at Dumas) as a head coach, he’ll be dealing with different numbers with his wife.
“For the longest time (Laura) focused on retirements and 403 Bs and IRAs, and back when COVID hit she partnered with a group out of Dallas and started offering property casualty insurance to her clients,” said Hamilton, who won 366 games at Randall. “I’ve been licensed for three years. I haven’t really been actively working with her in terms of day-to-day work but that’s something I’m looking forward to.”
“For years and years and years I haven’t used it, but when COVID hit and we didn’t know how education was going to return, I went ahead and got licensed and we expanded (Laura’s) business and I’ll be doing some work with her,” Hamilton said.
Now instead of scouring over scouting reports involving pitchers and hitters, Hamilton will spend his time studying IRAs and annuities. He’s been taking refresher courses to prepare for his new career.
Hamilton kept his plans to leave coaching within his family prior to this season. The Raiders had a great deal of talent returning from a team which won District 2-5A and were dropping down a classification after the 2022 UIL realignment.
“I didn’t want there to be any distractions because it was so much not about me,” Hamilton said. “It was so much about the team and their journey and them trying to accomplish something special. I’ve been so blessed to be a part of that.”
The Raiders fell two wins short of a state championship in a stellar year for Randall athletics, as the school won the UIL Class 4A Lone Star Cup, which goes to the state’s top school in each classification in all extracurricular activities. When the Raiders left Disch Falk Field at the University of Texas after their state semifinal loss, the symbolism was heavy for Hamilton.
“I finished up playing baseball at West Texas A&M in the spring of 2000,” Hamilton said. “The next year I was at Stinnett (at West Texas High) and I started working baseball camps at UT, so when I first started coaching it was on that field. To be able to work with kids and the purity of coaching at that level, to finish it on that field was just really, really special and I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
Hamilton is eager to remind people he’s not headed for a retirement home and that he’s going to continue working for as long as he can. It just won’t be at a school or on an athletic field.
Yet, coaching and teaching is something Hamilton has done for half his life. He will miss a lot about his former profession.
“It’s the relationships,” Hamilton said. “I’m not just talking about people I’ll see every day on the baseball field, it’s in the classroom. It’s kids who have a completely different situation who are in volleyball or who are in FFA or are trying to just be the best that they can. It’s just about people.”
Hamilton said in the 10 days after he announced his resignation that he’s already had two coaching job offers. Returning to a head coaching role soon isn’t in the cards though, as Hamilton’s thinking more about his family.
His daughter Lynnlie, who will be in the third grade next fall, was a constant at Randall games this year as a bat girl. When she’s old enough to get involved in competitive sports, Hamilton says he’s all-in.
“If it involves her being able to be a better softball player, basketball player or volleyball player, I could see me trying to volunteer time and offer encouragement,” Hamilton said. “Her and my wife have been so unselfish and given up so much of their time to benefit me.”