Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
 

Derek McDaniel has taken the reins of the Waynesboro Generals after the team decided to part ways with Ronnie Palmer due to an NCAA rules issue.

The team announced the move on Friday. McDaniel finished the 2009 season as manager of the Generals after Andy Chalot stepped down midseason. He had also served as manager of the team for several seasons in the early part of the 2000s decade.

The man who first hired him into the Generals organization, co-owner Jim Critzer, will join McDaniel’s coaching staff as an assistant.

Palmer’s status was thrown into uncertainty last month when the organization learned of a conflict with an NCAA recruiting rule that prohibits NCAA coaches from managing junior-college players who have not committed to four-year schools. Palmer is the head coach at Division II Davis and Elkins College.

The team attempted to obtain a waiver from the NCAA allowing Palmer to manage the Generals in 2010, but were not able to resolve the issue in time for the start of the 2010 season.

  
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

Ronnie Palmer has built a winner in baseball at the community-college and now Division II college levels. It’s now Palmer’s task to rebuild the Waynesboro Generals after a season that saw the team miss the Valley League playoffs for the first time in three years.

“The history of the Valley League goes without saying with the players that you guys have had in this league. It’s certainly an honor to be a head coach in the league,” said Palmer, 34, the head coach at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, W.Va., who was named the manager of the Generals on Sept. 29.

Palmer will work for his former college coach, Lawrence Nesselrodt, the director of baseball operations for the Generals and a former Waynesboro manager.

Palmer’s Senators improved from a nine-win season in 2008, his first year at the helm of the program, to 24 wins and an appearance in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament in 2009. His 2007 team at Salem (N.J.) Community College won a conference championship at the tail end of a four-year run that saw the team increase its win total each year.

Palmer is a Davis & Elkins alum, graduating from the school in 1999 after hitting a school-record 16 homers and driving in a school-record 45 runs as a senior. (more…)