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By Friday morning, Gina and Patrick Wiley will have seen sons Cameron, second from left, and Reid receive their high school diplomas as they played in the Louisiana 3A baseball playoffs in successive years.

Diplomas on the Diamond: 2nd Wiley will graduate at state baseball playoffs

Gina and Patrick Wiley will be the parents of two Berwick High School graduates by late Thursday night, but neither the parents nor their sons actually will have attended the younger Wileys’ graduations at the school.
Well, sort of.
The eldest Wiley son, Cameron, graduated in 2017 on Field 41 at McMurry Park in Sulphur along with eight other Berwick High seniors, while the rest of the school’s graduates participated in the traditional commencement ceremonies at Geisler Stadium in Berwick.
Cameron and the rest of the baseball team were in Sulphur because they were playing in the Class 3A state semifinals, which fell on the same day of their graduation.
A year later, Berwick is back in the same situation and so are the Wileys as the younger of the two sons, Reid, is a senior and will play in a Class 3A state semifinal with his Berwick High School teammates.
That game is set for a 7:30 p.m. start on Field 41, with commencement exercises to precede the game. Berwick High School assistant baseball coach Lud Henry, a former principal at the school, will present the team’s five seniors their diplomas. In addition to Reid Wiley, Kyle Boudreaux, Kyle Pitre, Denver Jenkins, Patrick Robertson and Lucas Hatch will earn their diplomas.
The rest of the school will participate in commencement ceremonies at 7 p.m. at Geisler Stadium.
Reid said last year when he saw his brother graduate on the field, he wanted to do the same.
“It was really cool to witness how they did it last year,” Reid said Monday. “You saw how cool and how excited everyone was to not be at graduation, do something different, and now we get to experience it this year.”
His parents have no problem with the idea, either.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Gina said.
Patrick said from what he has heard, Berwick is one of the only schools to ever have graduated on the field at the state baseball tournament.
“To have my two kids do it … it’s pretty awesome,” he said.
While the school has had success in other sports, Berwick High School baseball coach Brandon Bravata said Berwick is simply a baseball town.
“I just don’t know if any of these kids would rather graduate anywhere else than on a baseball field. … It’s pretty special. It really is,” Bravata said.

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