Ballard High baseball coach gets a lucky haircut

Superstition has always played a big part in baseball and Ballard High School baseball coach Jim Du Bois has one that dates back to the spring of 1982, when Du Bois was a 16-year-old student wanting to tryout for the BHS baseball team.

"Coach McDonald told me at the try outs in the spring of 1982 that I would make the team if I got a haircut," Du Bois said. "Being 16 at the time, there was a part of me that wanted to rebel."

But wanting to play ball, he decided to get a haircut after all and walked to Smitty's Barber Shop on 15th Avenue N.W. at lunchtime.

"Smitty was an old, Navy barber with a grey flat top, mermaid tattoo, and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth," Du Bois recalled. "I told him the coach was on my back and [he should] just take enough off to get coach McDonald to ease up."

But to Du Bois horror, Smitty gave him a very short haircut not unlike a military buzz.

But Du Bois said that the specific haircut became a pivotal point for him in his baseball career. He not only made them team, he also helped the team win the 1982 championship.

"Without getting it [I wouldn't have been] on the team and likely [would not have returned] to Ballard as a coach," he said.

So this week, thirty years after the lucky haircut, Du Bois returned to Smitty's to sit in the same chair hoping there is any championship dust left.

"I think I took one for the team," said Du Bois, again sporting a short buzz cut.

The BHS baseball season kicks off with non-league play on March 10th, league-play on March 20th.