Kevin Farmer will always credit his players for wins and success on the baseball field. The Benedictine head coach has won four GHSA State Championships, two titles each at a pair of Savannah’s most respected programs. His teams have won state in 2005 and 2007 while Farmer was at Calvary Day, and he has gone on to win two more at his alma mater in 2014 and 2018.
But, while he credits his players (past and present) for his success, it is the players who seem to wind up crediting Farmer.
The list of players who have played under Farmer at the two schools is as long as it is impressive. They are current and former pros, college standouts, and high school stars. Many of them have used the skills taught to them by Farmer to make careers out of teaching the game they fell in love with while playing for him.
Long after they’ve stopped playing for him, Farmer’s former players have gone on to impact the game of baseball in Savannah for the next generation.
Farmer’s fingerprints are all over this city’s baseball fields. The players are passing the torch, as best they can, and they are branches on a Kevin Farmer coaching tree which is growing by the year.
Local high school coaches include Brandon Collins (Islands), Phillip Lee (Calvary Day) and Trey Lanier (New Hampstead) who are in various stages of building Savannah prep programs. Ross Howard is the Owner/Director of Savannah Baseball Performance Academy (SBPA), a baseball training facility with indoor batting cages and several travel teams in different age-groups. Each played his high school baseball for Kevin Farmer.
Lee, Collins and Howard each spoke about their former coach in April phone calls with PSR.
The Farmer Way
A 1992 graduate of Benedictine, Farmer serves as the school’s Assistant Principal as well as leading the baseball program. He has amassed over 420 career victories and is in the midst of his ninth season at BC after spending 10 successful years atop the Calvary program.
“He’s always going to be a guy who demands the absolute most of his players,” said Lee, who played under Farmer for two seasons at Calvary before graduating in 2003.
“Baserunning, bunting, defense … those are things that never go in a slump, 
and that’s something thet (Farmer’s) teams always buy into. It’s something I try to instill in our guys every day.”
Lee, now in his seventh season as the Calvary head coach, wasn’t able to win a state championship under Farmer, but he and his classmates (including Lanier, 2003) helped to pave the way for a pair of titles to come in 2005 and 2007.
He’s now trying to keep a big-picture view of his program in the hopes of achieving the sustainable success enjoyed by Farmer.
“A lot of teams want to have a great varsity program, and they want to ‘hey let’s try and win at the varsity level and that’s it’ kind of thing. But that’s something that (Farmer) did even at that time, he was building a program and that’s what I’ve tried to kind of take to the next level here,” said Lee.
“In order to have sustainable winning, we’ve really focused on our JV guys and middle school programs and even some of our youth programs that we are involved in. We want to continue to develop players until they leave but we want to start that process at an earlier age.”
Collins was a catcher for both state titles under Farmer at Calvary. He graduated as a Cav in 2007 and grew up on youth travel teams coached by 
Farmer, and he played alongside Kevin’s younger brother, Kyle, at Calvary. In his third season coaching Islands, Collins knows full well the impact of his former coach. And as the catcher for those championship Farmer clubs, he has special insight into what makes the coach tick.
“Even down to your shoes. Even your cleats were cleaned and checked,” Collins said of Farmer’s attention to detail on the diamond. “He pays so much attention to every little detail, and that’s sort of the way we were brought up. The little things mattered to him.”
Farmer’s locally-famous brand of baseball is highlighted by his affinity to play small-ball. To bunt. To move runners over. To execute the minor things and, ultimately, to win.
“He is get ‘em on, get ‘em over, get ‘em in. That’s him to a T,” said Collins, who coaches regularly against Farmer now as a member of Region 3-4A. “But the thing is, he’s always so good at teaching it. He teaches guys and they tend to come through for him because he is such a great teacher of the game of baseball.”
Howard was a freshman on the 2007 state champion Cavalier club and went on to be an All-Region player under Farmer until graduating in 2010. He is now running one of Savannah’s top year-round baseball facilities and makes a living 
out of teaching, and developing, young baseball players in the area.
“I think what I still really take from him today with my coaching is the accountability thing,” said Howard when asked how Farmer’s coaching a decade ago impacts his teaching methods today. “He expected each guy to understand what was asked of him, and he expected you to deliver for your teammates. Every player on a team is accountable to the other guys in the lineup or on the bench.
“And I think (Farmer) was so good at making sure the next guy up was ready, just in case the other guy wasn’t. He always seemed to know what to say, what to do, in those moments especially.”
Farmer’s 2021 Cadets have been ranked in the Top-3 of most Class 4A polls all season long and they entered late April with a record of 22-4. BC won the Region 3-4A Championship this season and will be a No. 1 seed in the state playoffs come May.
There is precedent for region titles turning into state rings under Farmer, and his Cadets are all lined up to bring him a fifth ring this year. But regardless of the season’s outcome, a lasting impact has already been made by Farmer. His stamp is planted all over Savannah baseball and the Farmer way doesn’t seem to be going out of style any time soon.
Follow Travis Jaudon on Twitter & Instagram @JaudonSports.
Contact him at travisLjaudon@gmail.com.
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