‘I will miss this’: Roseville’s longtime softball coach racks up wins in 38th season

Ask Art Banks how many times he’s won a softball game.

The Roseville coach thought about that for a second after Monday’s 10-0 win over Woodcreek: “Thirteen. Fourteen. Something like that.”

Not this year’s team, Art. All-time.

Banks gave a little smile. He didn’t know.

Is it more than 700?

“At the end of the year, I’ll look. … Probably 750, 775,” he said.

It’s easy to lose track when they pile up like that. A few weeks short of fully retiring from working with high school kids, Banks is still adding to his total with a Roseville team that’s ranked eighth in the area.

For the record (books), Banks has 753 career wins and 375 losses since starting his softball career in 1984. Entering the season, CalHi Sports had Banks ranked No. 6 all-time on the state coaching wins list.

He’s been retired for nine years from his job as a high school teacher at Woodcreek and Roseville, where he taught a medley of photography, shop and other classes.

And it’s not like he can’t still count. Banks was given another math question Tuesday: When does his wife, Ann Banks, retire?

“25 days,” Art replied with a broad smile.

It’s never been about personal victory total, but Art Banks has racked up a ton of them in his 38 years coaching softball in Placer County. When he started, during President Reagan’s first term, most of the schools in Placer County didn’t exist yet.

If you want to go even further back, Banks actually started coaching in 1977, when he coached wrestling and football. He was just 26 years old back then. He’s 71 years old now, but he’s still got some moves.

Sitting in the doorway to the dugout Tuesday, Banks was hit in the hand by a foul ball that was smashed by a Woodcreek player. He had a few words about dropping his ever-present bag of sunflower seeds, but he calmly walked out to pick up the ball and toss it to the umpire.

Senior captain Malaya Johnson said Banks is just old-school. Players on rival teams might make some hay out of his age, but Johnson said the three-month high school season is a special break from the year-round grind of club softball.

“I actually really look forward to it,” she said. “A lot of people from other schools say, ‘He’s old, he can’t really tell you anything you don’t already know. … But I think it’s honestly better. He’s so eager, and I think it’s really important to us seniors that this is not just our last year, but his last year, because we want it for him just as bad as we want it for ourselves.”

Johnson and her fellow seniors are a dominant presence on this year’s Tiger roster. There are 10 seniors playing for Roseville; seven plan to play in college next year. Johnson, the team’s star pitcher and a top batter, is going with two teammates to UC Santa Barbara. Infielder Shay McDowell, ranked among the top prospects in the 2022 class, has signed with Oregon State.

With that kind of talent, Banks’ farewell tour isn’t a glum slog to the finish. Roseville ranks among the best teams in the area, with a 14-7 overall record. Tuesday’s win over Woodcreek gave the Tigers a 6-1 mark in Capital Valley Conference play. The win was never in much doubt, though Woodcreek has a solid team. The Tigers batted around in the first inning, scoring six runs. Johnson gave up two hits in the first inning and no more over the next four innings as Roseville picked up a mercy-rule win. Jennavieve Goldsworth had a pair of hits, two runs and an RBI; Karissa Avila had two hits, two runs and two RBIs.

Johnson said the win meant a little more because Woodcreek has had the upper hand over its crosstown rival in other sports this past season. As seniors, Johnson said she took a little pride in getting a second win against the rivals.

As is the case with many teams Roseville faces, Woodcreek was intimately familiar with its opposition Tuesday. Banks coached for 19 seasons at Woodcreek, racking up 357 wins. Woodcreek coach Gary Ybarra smiled remembering how Banks coached his daughter 14 years ago, during an era of dominance in the Sierra Foothill League. Woodcreek won four straight division titles from 2004 to 2007 and placed second in five of the six ensuing seasons under Banks.

“They had a veteran team that had a lot of the players who kind of ran things and gave coaches suggestions,” Ybarra said. “So I think that was a little different than what it may be now. They had a great group of girls back then. And when you have that much talent, it’s easy to coach, or a little easier to coach, and some of those decisions are a lot easier. But he left the program in a great position, did a great job with it.”

Banks is used to the slaps on the back. He’s never had a losing record at Roseville. At Woodcreek, he built a powerhouse out of a team that won two games and lost 27 in his first season in 1995.

He says the game in Placer County has changed. There are a lot of good teams now, instead of singular powerhouses, like the 1990 team he coached at Roseville that was ranked No. 1 in California.

“I will miss this there’s no doubt about it, but it will be a welcome break from it,” Banks said, “because it’s been a lot of years of fall ball, winter ball. We have athletic PE here where we come out at 1:30 instead of the 2:30 or 3 o’clock. Yeah. So it’s a lot of time that you commit to it.”

Instead, those hours will be dedicated to Ann Banks, the grandkids and some travel. In the meantime, there’s just five games left on Art Banks’ schedule, with the possibility of a half-dozen or so more in the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs. For the next few weeks, he’ll coach at third base with his helmet on when the Tigers are batting. When they’re on defense, Banks will be at the door to the dugout, sunflower seeds in hand, just like always.