A Baseball Coach’s Enduring Legacy: Former MGC Warriors Reunite to Honor Robert Sapp

Author: Sheron Smith
Posted: Wednesday, February 11, 2026 12:00 AM
Category: Pressroom

Macon, GA

Robert Sapp, middle, with his wife, Nancy, and some of his former Middle Georgia College Warriors baseball players at a reunion hosted by the MGA Office of Advancement & Alumni Affairs. More reunion photos are posted at Middle Georgia State University's Facebook page.

For a few hours on a recent winter evening at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, Bo Taylor was back in 1982, surrounded by his Middle Georgia College teammates from the Warriors baseball squad that went 53-3 on the way to another national championship.

Taylor was the winning pitcher in the deciding game that year, throwing 8 1/3 innings against Mesa Community College. Several men from that team – “my brothers,” as he still calls them – joined him at the Macon-based Sports Hall, along with about 70 other former players who Robert Sapp coached during his legendary 20-year tenure at Middle Georgia College in Cochran.

Hosted on Saturday, Feb. 7, by the Middle Georgia State University (MGA) Office of Advancement & Alumni Relations, the gathering was likely the largest reunion ever of players from the Sapp era. From 1976 to 1996, Sapp built a junior college powerhouse that racked up four national championships (1979, 1980, 1982, and 1995), reached the JUCO World Series 12 times, and won 11 consecutive state titles.

Many of his players went on to compete at NCAA Division I schools and in various levels of pro ball, with some reaching the Major Leagues.

Taylor, who later pitched at the University of South Carolina and appeared in the 1985 College World Series, is now a businessman in Birmingham, Ala. He said the reunion’s strong turnout came as no surprise.

“Coach Sapp meant so much to me and to so many others,” Taylor said. “He was a teacher who set high standards and pushed us to hit those standards. And he did a phenomenal job of bringing in talent and pulling all of it together into one cohesive team.”

Sapp is 85 now, sporting a full head of chalk-white hair. Since his Middle Georgia College reign, the Brunswick, Ga., native has coached at the University of Georgia (his alma mater), directed the popular Robert Sapp Baseball Camp, and settled into retirement in Flowery Branch, Ga., with his wife, Nancy. In 1995, the National Junior College Athletics Association inducted him into the Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame.

At the reunion, however, retirement seemed far away. Sapp rarely sat during the three-hour event, apparently skipping dinner so he could circulate and reminisce with his former players, many accompanied by spouses or other family members.

“These are not just great players, they’re great guys,” Sapp said when asked what it meant to see so many of them gathered. “They had great hearts and just gave everything they had. I’d like for them to remember the discipline they learned from being on those teams and how that carries into the rest of your life. We stressed academics, too, that was very important. But also, I hope they just enjoyed playing the game. You know, to me, it’s ‘play ball’ not ‘work ball.’  I think these guys did enjoy playing, almost like they were just having a good time in the backyard.”

Nearby, Sapp displayed more than a dozen photo albums and scrapbooks chronicling Middle Georgia College’s baseball glory years.

Jud Hall, a pitcher on the 1995 national championship team, lingered over the pages. He and his wife, Alicia, drove from Jackson, Ga., for the reunion. Hall, who later played at North Carolina State, described Sapp as demanding but deeply invested in his players.

“He just had a knack for getting everybody on the same page so that we competed at our highest level,” Hall said. “Being here tonight brings a lot of things full circle, remembering what it meant to be part of a team and seeing how much he also meant to other players from way before my time there.”

Another familiar face at the reunion was Kal Daniels, who set a single season home run record at Northside High in Warner Robins before joining Middle Georgia College’s 1982 championship team, where he was named series MVP.

Drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in 1982, Daniels made his Major League debut at age 22 and played seven seasons with the Reds, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Chicago Cubs. (Fun fact: he holds a .471 career batting average against Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux.)

Daniels said Sapp taught his players to “become young men.”

“He knew it was about more than baseball; it was about what happens after baseball,” Daniels said. “He taught us to become family and to love and take care of each other.”

Sapp said he plans to donate the Middle Georgia College baseball photo albums and scrapbooks he brought to the reunion to the school’s archives.

The school, of course, is now Middle Georgia State University, created in 2015 through a merger with Macon State College. Along with the evolution to an institution that offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees came a major rebranding and revamping of the athletics program.

As the Knights, MGA competed for several years in the NAIA before just recently moving to the more competitive Peach Belt Conference of NCAA Division II.

Yet, as MGA President Christopher Blake noted during the reunion, Warriors baseball remains a treasured part of the institution’s history.

It's also a blueprint for the future.

“If you have a 20-year career with 900 wins and 100 players who go on to professional baseball, you know that is a legacy that is going to last across generations,” Blake said. “We’ve just begun playing NCAA Division II baseball for the first time, and Robert, you helped us get there. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

To learn how to support MGA Knights athletics, visit https://knightsathleticassociation.com/. 

See more reunion photos at Middle Georgia State University's Facebook page.