Ankeny Centennial baseball coach Mark Hey calls himself the luckiest coach alive.
“The people and the athletes at both high schools in this community that I’ve been associated with, you couldn’t ask for better people,” Hey said. “To me, the recognition (that a coach gets) is for all the people that have influenced that coach and have been around that coach and touched him. I’m just very thankful to be a part of this community.”
Hey will be inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Jan. 20 at Cedar Rapids. He’ll be joined in the Hall of Fame class by fellow coaches Dave Dirkx and Jim Wesselman, former player John Knapp and longtime umpire Chris Oberbroeckling.
Hey has won 540 games in his career.
“I’m really humbled obviously,” Hey said. “I’m not sure that I’m the same caliber of coach that is in the Hall of Fame. I know a lot of them that are in the Hall of Fame, and they’re a lot of the coaches that I’ve admired and looked up to and tried to emulate and respect in every way. So it’s very humbling when you get recognized like that.”
Hey started his coaching career at Ackley-Geneva in 1990-91. He spent one year at Battle Creek-Ida Grove before moving to Ankeny in 1993 and becoming an assistant coach under Hall of Famer Mel Murken.
When Murken retired after the 2000 season, Hey was hoping to take over the Hawks’ program. But the school district hired Brad Rose instead.
“When Rosie was hired, I interviewed for that job as well and I didn’t get it at that time,” Hey said. “At the moment, it was kind of deflating to me. I really wanted to be a head coach again, and I kind of thought maybe Ankeny wasn’t going to be the place for me to do that and I would have to look elsewhere. But those three years that I coached with Brad were a lot of fun. I learned so much from him. It became a huge positive to spend those three years with him, and coming after the time I spent with a Hall of Fame coach like Mel Murken, I was just tremendously fortunate to learn from two of the best.”
Hey was then hired to replace Rose in 2004 and led Ankeny to some of the best seasons in school history over the next decade. In 2005, the Hawks placed second in Class 4A and hit a school-record 67 home runs, the second-highest total in state history.
In 2012, Ankeny cruised to the Class 4A state title and finished with a 43-2 record. It was the most wins for the state’s largest class since the four-class system started in 1982.
Hey moved across town to begin Centennial’s program in 2013. Since then, he has guided the Jaguars to 228 victories, including a school-record 30 wins in 2023.
“The players keep you young, and the families are so supportive of what you do and what you are trying to accomplish,” Hey said.