‘This is my dream job.’ Livingston High baseball coach still going strong after 31 years

Whenever Matt Winton feels nostalgic, the longtime Livingston High baseball coach can stroll around his classroom.

Hanging on the walls are every team picture that Winton coached, which includes every Wolves baseball player from the past 31 years.

Also hanging on Winton’s walls are football team pictures after helping coach for 16 years and then past the Livingston girls golf teams he’s coached for the past 15 years.

It’s like the “Winton Wall of Fame” hanging in his social studies classroom.

“Sometimes I’ll walk around the classroom, and it’s fun to see the different decades and to think where they are now,” Winton said.

This spring Winton, 54, is patrolling the home dugout at Alvernaz Field for his 31st season as the Wolves baseball coach. That’s over three decades spent at his alma mater, coaching in his home town.

At a time when the shelf life of high school coaches in any sport seems to be shrinking, Winton is a rare breed.

Winton graduated from Livingston High in 1987 where he played football, basketball and baseball in high school.

He grew up with his brother Scott, who is now the Livingston athletic director, across the street from the Alvernaz Field. It was just a long fungo bat flyball to the Winton’s front yard.

A Livingston man

Livingston High School has always been a big part of the Winton family. His parents were longtime teachers at the high school. Russ taught social studies for over 30 years, and Jeannie was an English teacher for over 20 years.

“Livingston High School, it’s everything,” Matt Winton said. “My family has gone through Livingston High School. I’ve been fortunate to teach when both my parents were teaching here. It’s been awesome to do what I’ve done for as long as I’ve done it.”

After playing football for two years at San Francisco State, Matt Winton wanted to play baseball so he came back to Merced County and played for Chris Pedretti at Merced College.

“He was an outstanding athlete,” said Pedretti, who spent 32 years as the Blue Devils head coach. “He went to San Francisco State to play quarterback, which tells you he was a special athlete. We felt very fortunate that he came back to play for us for two years.”

Coaching start

After graduating college, Winton worked as an assistant for his Livingston High coach Bobby Johnson before taking over the Wolves in 1993.

“I remember we were on the way to an all-league meeting and Bobby said he was thinking of stepping down and he told me it’s my turn to take it over,” Winton said. “It kind of fell into my lap when I was 23 years old.”

“The year I was helping Bobby, I was offered the Gustine job, but I just wanted to be in Livingston,” Winton added. “I’ve never had a desire to leave. This is my dream job. I think I could teach and coach anywhere, but I could never teach and coach and give to the community anywhere like here.”

Imagine all the time spent over three decades crammed into a seat on a school bus for a bumpy ride to an away game. The countless hours spent getting the baseball field ready for games and practices. The wear and tear on his arm after throwing battling practice for 31 years.

“We grew up across the street from the ballpark,” said Scott Winton. “We were the kids shagging foul balls all spring and summer. I think he sees what the game has done for us and wants to pay it forward. Each Spring, he gets the opportunity to share the game with a new group of local kids.”

Making an impact

Baseball and teaching has been a way for Matt Winton to make a huge impact on his community. He’s helped generation of Livingston athletes and students grow into productive members of the community.

And he loves doing it.

Scott Winton says he and is brother learned a lot from coaches like former Livingston coach Vern Prichett, Johnson, John Lema and Chris Pedretti.

“There is a standard in how you play the game, Matt’s passionate about upholding that standard,” Scott Winton said. “He takes it personal, and he absolutely cares how his teams play the game.”

Above all, Matt Winton expects his players and teams to respect the game. He says he was fortunate to play for the coaches he did growing up and took a little bit from all of them.

During the 2021-22 school year Winton was named a Model Coach Winner by the Sac-Joaquin Section. The section hands out the award to honor coaches who are positive role models in the section.

He tries to coach with positive energy, which was on display during the Wolves’ second game of the Atwater Easter Tournament last week. A Livingston pitcher came in and struggled to find the strike zone, which led to a nine-run inning by Enochs of Modesto.

After the Wolves finally came back into the dugout after the long inning you wouldn’t have known Livingston was behind 9-0.

“Get the music going,” Winton said.

The Wolves play music in their dugout between innings and immediately Abba’s song “Dancing Queen” started blaring in the dugout.

“Nothing changes,” Winton said. “I love a ‘Dancing Queen’ rally.”

“He’s made a big impact,” said Bobby Johnson, who coached Winton all through high school. “You can see it with the relationships he’s made with his former players. They come back to see him, they come out to the games. They stay in touch with him.”

“He’s a Livingston guy,” Johnson added. “You can’t have more pride in your hometown or school than that guy. He’s proud of where he comes from and he’s proud of his school.”

Part of the family

During his coaching career Matt Winton had the opportunity to coach his niece Annie Winton in golf and his nephews Cooper and Owen in baseball. Coaching all three was one of the highlights of his career.

His wife Lupe has always been a big part of the program during their 29 years of marriage.

Many Livingston players have had Lupe’s breakfast burritos while they’ve had morning workouts at the high school.

“They’re just good people,” said Omar Aguilar, who played for Winton and graduated from Livingston in 2003. “He’s one of the most influential people in my life. Not only because he was my coach, but also because of the person he is. He did so much for me and my family.”

“When I think of Livingston, or baseball in Livingston, it’s him,” Aguilar added. “He’s a staple of Livingston. He’s one of a kind.”

Aguilar is one of the top players to come out of Livingston during the Winton era. Aguilar wasn’t able to play as a freshman because he didn’t make grades. He remembers Winton talking to him that sophomore year and telling him he won’t be able to showcase what he can do unless he does his job in the classroom.

The hard-throwing right-hander was drafted by the San Francisco Giants out of high school. He eventually signed with the Milwaukee Brewers after two years at Merced College.

When Aguilar was invited to a pre-draft workout at the Giants stadium in San Francisco he asked Winton to drive him because the rest of his family had to work. Winton also drove him down to Los Angeles for workouts at Dodger Stadium.

“That was one of my favorite moments,” Aguilar said. “He always joked that I took him for a ride and that he didn’t deserve it. Hell yeah, he did. Just him being there gave me confidence and the mind set that I belonged there.”

The sprint

Ask anyone who played for the Wolves the past 20 years and they will remember Winton sprinting from the first-base dugout to the third-base coaching box every inning.

Scott Winton jokes Livingston has the fastest third-base coach in the state. Matt Winton said he started it as a way to reach one of his teams.

“I didn’t always do it,” he said. “It started about 15 to 20 years ago. I had a group who weren’t particularly hustling a lot. I figured if I wanted them to do it, I had to model the behavior. At the same time, the San Francisco Giants had a third base coach named Wendell Kim who did it. It became a dual thing and I liked doing it.”

Aguilar helped coach a high school team in Chico. He found himself sprinting to the coaching box.

“That was one of the benefits of having coach Winton,” Aguilar said. “If we were working on drag bunting, he would physically jump in there and show us how to drag bunt. He would show us how to take the proper angle on a ground ball or take a grounder off his chest. As a player, when you have a coach show you how to do it, you know you better do it. He would even take batting practice and he could hit home runs over the fence.”

Also in Winton’s classroom you will find three Trans-Valley League championship baseballs signed by those teams in 1996, 2019 and 2022.

The Wolves have yet to win a section championship under Winton, but you don’t measure his impact in blue banners or wins and losses.

“To last 30-plus years is outstanding,” Pedretti said. “He gets it. He loves where he’s at and he loves being a part of that community. He’s not always going to get the great athletes, but he gets the kids to buy in and he creates a family atmosphere.”

Winton says he still plans on adding to his team picture collection in the classroom. He joked when he was hired they’d have a hard time getting rid of him.

“As long as I’m healthy and having fun, I’ll keep doing it,” he said. “When I stop having fun is probably when I won’t do it anymore.”