Little League coach drowned trying to save son, teammates

By Christian Boone

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With four boys struggling in the Florida surf, including one of his sons, Little League baseball coach Darin McGahey was among the dads who swam out to save them.

No one was overly panicked. The rescue didn't appear to be a treacherous one. The boys, in fact, found safety on a nearby sandbar.

"We thought we were going into five feet [of] deep water to pull the kids out," said Jay Morris, another coach and rescuer. "No one thought much of it."

However, McGahey's heroic action last Wednesday cost the 42-year-old Georgia man his life. In collecting the boys, he went missing in the subtle undertow off Navarre Beach and drowned.

On Tuesday, members of the 12-and-under Locust Grove Razorbacks, dressed in uniform, will attend the McDonough man's funeral in the town where he lived. McGahey was their assistant coach. Everyone had gone to Pensacola for the USSSA World Series.

They were left with an unimaginable loss.

McGahey had jumped in with the boys flailing away in water over their heads. One of them was his son, Noah, 11, one of the team's best players. The rescue became more difficult the farther the older McGahey went out.

"A wave would come and take you under and then pull you out," said Morris, the Razorbacks' head coach.

Two other dads found Darin McGahey, pulled him to the beach barely conscious and frantically administered CPR. Other parents did their best to shield Noah McGahey and half-brother, Austin, 15, who had tagged along on the Florida road trip, from the horror.

"Our focus was on the kids," Morris said.

Family members remained in a state of shock, over how something so well intentioned as a baseball trip could turn out so numbing. McGahey left behind his wife of 12 years, Ann Hightower, and three sons, including Dustin McGahey, 17.

"It hasn't hit them yet," said Jeff McGahey, 38, the man's brother.

Darin McGahey had devoted himself to coaching since he had quit playing, coaching as many as three teams at once. He had taught most of the Razorbacks how to play the game. He even had coached Jeff McGahey and his sibling's three sons.

"He was always at the ball field," Morris said. "He loved baseball."

McGahey's easy temperament contradicted the stereotype of the overly involved Little League dad, friends and family said.

"He knew how to relate to the kids, to get them to understand how to play the game," Morris said.

Said Jeff McGahey, fighting back tears. "He never got mad. He didn't have a mean bone in his body. Man, you don't even know."

Steffany Mallett, a self-described team mom, said her son, Cole, is a teammate and good friend of Noah McGahey's. Cole Mallett wasn't on the beach when his coach drowned but the incident has left a deep scar.

"He doesn't want to go anywhere near the ocean now," his mother said.

Darin McGahey's funeral is set for 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Chapel of Haisten Funeral Home in McDonough.