He sat in the first-base bleachers at the beautifully-manicured field, sipping on an iced tea, thinking.

That’s all. Just thinking.

Staton Field has become the East Rowan personality’s sanctuary, a place he can relax in the sun and muse about the past, present and future.

Thursday afternoon, all types of thoughts — too many, really — were rushing through his head. Son Garrett’s 330-foot homer. Son Drew’s no-hitter. And the East Rowan football players who had just been told that their coach that he was stepping down.

Jeff Safrit has always been considered first and foremost a baseball coach. That’s why it seemed absolutely appropriate that he made the decision to give up the sport on the baseball field.

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He thought about five years ago, when he took over the football program from W.A. Cline.

“I had been an assistant for a long time and as an assistant, somewhere along the line, you want the opportunity. And I could keep baseball.

“I was going to take it for three years and see what happened,” he said.

After one year, everyone expected him to throw his hands up in disgust and leave football. The Mustangs went 2-8-1 and everybody just knew Safrit couldn’t take losing. He’d be gone quickly.

The so-called experts who said that — and there were many — didn’t fully understand this man, a 1975 graduate of the school. No way was he going to badmouth this program and give up. This was his alma mater. The East Rowan people were his people.

Instead of quitting and telling people that there was no way East Rowan could win, he stayed put in that football office. And guess what? He won. In his next four years, the Mustangs went 31-17.

How did he do it? Athletic director Worth Roberts knows.

“Jeff can motivate kids,” Roberts said. “I’ve seen other coaches step in and make a few changes and their personality is personified in that team. There is no one with a greater desire to win than Jeff.”

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Well, heck, everybody knows that. The main reason is that Safrit has a keen eye for potential. He looked at Nick Lefko, for instance, in baseball, and saw something he liked. He worked with him and worked with him. Now, Lefko is a home run hitter, a guy who leaps over the fence to rob home runs. He is a perfect example of what we call a “Safrit kid.”

But we expect that in baseball. Safrit is the king of (baseball) diamonds around here. He has the strongest personality and usually has the strongest teams.

But football ... well, football would be a challenge. Of course, he met it.

Anybody else beat Kannapolis in 1997 when the Wonders won the state championship?

The last night of the regular season in 1997 was when Safrit, “the baseball coach who coaches football on the side” became Jeff Safrit, “football coach, period.”

His 9-2 Mustangs defeated Sun Valley that night and ended in a three-way tie with juggernauts Kannapolis (led by its well-known coach Bruce Hardin) and Concord (led by its well-known coach E.Z. Smith). The three met at Pancake House in Concord for a playoff draw. Safrit won and the baseball school had become the powerful South Piedmont Conference’s top football seed.

That had to be his greatest moment as a football coach, right?

“Oh yeah,” he said with a grin. He leaned back in those Staton Field bleachers and began remembering.

“I was standing there with two legends,” he said. “They lose and I walk away smiling — and everybody’s cussing me on the way out.”

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Off the field, he has fought for his fellow coaches over paltry supplements that are quite laughable when you look at the numbers. Rowan’s school honchos continue to show their apathy when it comes to rewarding coaches who nurture our kids and work so many unheralded, 80-plus-hour weeks.

Safrit even wrote in his letter of resignation to superintendant Joe McCann:

“Rowan County does not keep up with surrounding counties monetarily to make it worthwhile the time lost at home. Many hours are spent away from home and family that can never be made up.

“Rowan County has some very good coaches, however, if the coaching salaries do not catch up, many of the good coaches will be seeking employment in these better-paying counties.”

But it wasn’t all money. Being the baseball coach took time away from his football players during the spring. It also didn’t give him much time with his wife, Tina.

“It seems like there’s two weeks out of the year we could do something,” he said.

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So Jeff Safrit becomes baseball coach only.

After all those years as an assistant and those five years of winning as the head man, he is giving up those hot August football practices, those Friday night lights, those crowds of 5,000, the rush of last-second wins. But he leaves with the satisfaction of turning a football program over to someone that has prove it can win on a consistent basis.

“It’s not like I was forced out,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going out because we’re losing. We’ve had four winning seasons in a row. The program is not in the pits.”

Suddenly, Safrit, seemed to get a bit tender.

“Friday nights are going to be tough,” he said softly. “I might have to go to the beach every weekend.”

You could tell Safrit was thinking again. The Misenheimers, the Faavesis, the Bargers, the Heards, the Bogers, the Guessfords, the Hortons ... And the overachievers like Derek Ballard, who he says, “I’ll always use as an example.”

Good times on that football field.

Safrit will have time to remember them all now. And what better place for East’s baseball coach to do it than at Staton Field on a lazy afternoon, where it’s just him, the swish-swish-swish of the sprinklers — and some very fond memories.

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