NEW ULM — New Ulm VFW Silver first-year head coach Jeff Ferrell’s baseball journey has taken him full circle from beginning in Minnesota and going to New Mexico to Virginia and then back to Minnesota.

“I went to Delano High School and then I started coaching at Albuquerque High School for five years, then Del Norte, and then I went to George C. Marshall High School in Virginia,” he said. “Then I coached at Langley High School in Virginia for eight years [going 117-40], and then in my last two years of coaching I was at Robinson Secondary School before I became an Athletic Director there, and they were the 10th largest high school in Virginia.”

Ferrell, who has 24 years of coaching under his belt, said that coaching helps give the kids the opportunity to play.

And when Farrell decided to retire, he and his wife thought about where they wanted to settle.

“My wife is from Fairfax and I was born in Sleepy Eye — was in Franklin then to Mountain Lake to Hector and then Delano,” he said. “And we were away from family quite a bit — my cousin Trent Loverude lives here and his parents Deb and Kevin Loverude live in New Ulm — and we have been friends for a long time. And a lot of her family is still around here.

“So basically when we started to think about retiring, we wanted to get back to Minnesota and we landed the plane here in New Ulm.”

Ferrell said that when got here, there was an opening for Silver head coach, and he applied for and got the job.

“And the first game I coached all of those coaching juices got flowing again — all of those years of coaching and intensity started coming back — and I enjoyed the heck out of it and I still do. You want to teach the kids the game and help them progress. An when they get out of high school they can become good citizens — that is even better.”

Ferrell said that where he used to coach was in a county of about 2.5 million people.

“But here is kind of like where I grew up — small town and you know a lot of people — and I thoroughly enjoy giving back to the community.”