McNairy softball has buckets, drummers in the dugout

MURFREESBORO – McNairy Central’s softball coaches and players frantically looked for a bucket in the minutes before they began their Class AA state tournament semifinal game with Creek Wood on Thursday.

“We can’t find the white bucket. Has anybody seen a white bucket with our team logo on it?”

The bucket was eventually located with one of the parents in the stands. What was in the bucket? Why was it so important?

“We use it for one of the drums in the dugout and it has a good sound to it,” said Lady Bobcat coach Melanie Surratt with a laugh after the game. “It sounds crazy, but our team feeds off the energy in our dugout if we have everything in our dugout going the way it should.”

It’s not a rarity for softball teams to have plenty of rhythm going on in their dugouts as games progress.

Players in the dugout will essentially lead cheers or short songs repetitively to either encourage their teammates or annoy their opponents.

But McNairy adds to that with players Caitlyn Bodiford and Allison Jones. They sit in the dugout if they’re not playing and use drumsticks on the buckets for various purposes and playing specific beats that either go along with a cheer or produce an upbeat rhythm to momentarily get the players ready to move a little faster in the field if the ball is hit their way.

“We started it at the beginning of the season,” Bodiford said. “We had all these buckets and playing them like drums, and we started bring sticks to play with too.”

Jones is in the McNairy Central band’s color guard, and she’s familiar with some of the songs the band plays. But neither she nor Bodiford have training in playing drums.

“We just kind of go out and do it,” Jones said. “We don’t play anything too complicated.”

It’s unknown how much the bucket drums had to do with McNairy’s run in the postseason.

“I don’t know if they help us win or not, but they definitely keep our dugout lively,” Surratt said. “Which coaches want their dugouts in the game and pushing their teammates, so it’s possible they have helped indirectly.”

Reach Brandon Shields at bjshields@jacksonsun.com or at 731-425-9751. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or on Instagram at jacksonsunsports.