'Trying to get a little better each day'
Where does time go?
Mike Darnell is closing in on a milestone. The Bishop England High School baseball coach is in his 29th year as a high school coach, with 22 of those seasons at BE.
He led the Bishops to six state championships and developed four players who went on to play professional baseball: Reese Havens, John Cornely, Geoffrey Gilbert, and Steven Brooks.
But ask the affable coach what his career record is, and he will respond, “No clue.”
That’s what makes Darnell a great coach. He’s not in it for the money or fame. He coaches to help young men become better baseball players and even better citizens.
Darnell doesn’t know his coaching record, but trying to find high school baseball stats and records can almost be as difficult as coming up with the winning lottery numbers.
But what we do know is Bishop England posted a 216-95 record during the 2010s, winning four state championships, while finishing state runners-up one time.
The program, led by Darnell and his longtime friend and assistant Bill Collier during the remarkable decade, was named the Class AAA program of the decade by diamondprospects.com, which tracks the top players and teams in the Palmetto State.
The Bishops won the 2011 state title with a 26-9 record under Collier, who replaced Darnell when he took a job as baseball coach in 2008 at Cardinal Newman High School in Columbia. Darnell returned in time for the 2012 season and closed out the decade with three consecutive state titles. The 2017 team went 24-9, the 2018 squad was 31-2, and the 2019 team went 24-9.
But that was then, and this is now. The BE baseball program hasn’t matched that success, as magnet and charter schools, along with travel teams and sports academies, chipped away at BE’s talent base.
Times have changed, and so have the players, and not just the players who wear the BE uniforms.
“The players don't know the game as well as they did in the past,” Darnell said. “When I say that, I am really talking about all the small details that make the game so beautiful. It is more of a highlight (SportsCenter) game for them.
“Something as simple as scoring a game with your dad, and understanding all of the little things that matter to the big picture,” the coach added. “It is what a lot of people love about the game, and it is kind of dying.”
The Bishops, who posted a 19-8 record and won the Region 7-AAAA championship last spring, opened the 2026 season with one win in their first four games.
The team is young, with only three seniors on the roster: Sammy Garton (outfield/pitcher), Max Nelms (outfield/pitcher), and Ben Turner (infield/designated hitter).
“We need to pitch better and play better defense,” Darnell said. “Those have been, and always will be, the things that make average teams good and good teams great.
"We have more kids in our program now, which is a good thing, but we are pretty green when it comes to actual game experience. We are just trying to get a little better each day, and hopefully, when playoffs roll around, we will be a much better version of ourselves.”