Rick Kneisel: Dunwoody High School
Kneisel was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2023.
After relocating to Ohio to take care of his ailing mom, Rick Kneisel often thought about his days of coaching high school baseball in Georgia.
But after being gone for more than decade, the mark he left in the Peach State hadn’t been forgotten. And the Georgia Dugout Hall of Fame Committee wanted to recognize his achievements. He was one of five inducted into the Hall as part of the Class of 2023.
“I’m very humbled and honored,” Kneisel said. “When you look at the names of the many people who have gone into the Hall of Fame, they are people I competed against when I was at Dunwoody over and over.”
Kneisel moved away with his dog Ranger ( who passed away in early 2023), but his baseball roots still run deep in Georgia. He spent one year at Peachtree High in 1981-82 before it merged with Dunwoody. Kneisel then led Dunwoody until 1998 where he compiled a 213-98-1 record as head coach.
He guided the Wildcats to a state runner-up finish in 1990 where the Wildcats looked to upend national power Evans, who was in the midst of one of the state’s most-dominant dynasties. Dunwoody lost Game 3 in the seventh inning when an Evans player stole home to help the Knights win the game and the series.
Kneisel was named state Coach of the Year that season and was also the Atlanta Braves Coach of the Year.
In 1998, he went to Lassiter High as an assistant where he played an integral role in helping the Trojans win the state baseball title in 1999 as well as the national championship. His last season at Lassiter, the school won the 2006 state championship in the state’s highest classification.
In 1999, he was named Assistant Coach of the Year.
Kneisel’s work went beyond the game. He served a stint as the Metro Atlanta Dugout Club President (now the Georgia Dugout Club) and was Teacher of the Year for DeKalb County Schools in 1988, then in Cobb County Schools in 2005.
His coaching tenure at Dunwoody put him in competition with some of the state’s legendary baseball coaches – Greg Goodwin at Redan, Marvin Pruitt at Lakeside-DeKalb, Ron Elgin at Lithonia, John DeVore at Shamrock and Dion Williams at McNair. All five are currently in the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame.
He also competed against the late Harvey Cochran at North Cobb and the late Jerry Queen at Marist.
“Those are very important people that helped mold my career by helping me,” Kneisel said. “But going into the Hall of Fame, I don’t believe I have the credentials that most of those guys have.”
Goodwin said he and Kneisel locked horns in some epic battles, some with playoff berths on the line.
“Man he beat me in a 12-inning game that we lost 3-2 to go to the state playoffs,” Goodwin said. “That was the best team I ever had. But he had some very good teams too.
“His teams were always ready to play. He was a good coach that I respected the heck out of. Playing him made you a better coach because his teams did all the little things – bunting, hit-and-run – everything you needed to do to win. I was a young coach and he was a veteran guy, so I always tried to learn a lot from him.”
After Kneisel’s mother passed away in 2013, his hometown high school inquired about him coaching once again. For three years, he led the Wilmington, Ohio baseball program and helped it make positive strides.
“I love the game … always have and I love coaching,” he said. “But you have to have something to work with. I was blessed with some pretty good athletes at Wilmington and we ended up winning the league. I liked to throw batting practice and hit, but it came to a point where I just couldn’t do that anymore.”
He joked that he was only ejected twice in his coaching career, including once as an assistant when he was on the back end of former Lassiter coach Mickey McMurtry’s argument with a first-base umpire.
“I kind of grumbled about the call and the home plate umpire heard me and threw me out,” he said.
Kneisel gave up coaching for good in 2016 after some major reconstructive surgeries. He relished his time, but not in terms of wins and accolades.
“The main thing was to try and teach kids the game, help make them better human beings and have better attitudes,” he said. “Hopefully I was able to do that.”