PROCTORVILLE - April 15 was Income Day. It was also the day Roger Snyder got one big return on the 23 years he had invested as a high school baseball coach.

When Fairland beat the St. Joseph Flyers 18-3 on that Tuesday, it not only gave the Dragons their fifth win of the season but enabled Snyder to reach a milestone 300th career victory.

Snyder, who doesn't like to talk about milestones, is now 315-188 in 23 years coaching baseball at Fairland (twice), Bradford, and Ravenswood, W.Va. In fact, he didn't realize he had reached the 300 plateau until he was preparing for the regional tournament.

"I knew at the end of last year when the district secretary asked for my record that I was going to get it this year, I just didn't pay any attention. I was just adding up my record in case we made it to the state tournament and I realized I had made it," Snyder said.

The win total was the result of two years at Fairland starting in 1970, then two more years at Ravenswood where he guided his alma mater to the state tournament, four years at Bradford, and then he returned to coach the past 15 years at Fairland.

The Dragons finished the season 20-3 and won a second straight Ohio Valley Conference title, its sixth under Snyder. The Dragons berth in the regionals was Snyder's second at Fairland and third overall.

"You've just been coaching a long time if you get 300 wins," Snyder said. "I've been fortunate to be in it a long while. I've been fortunate to have some good athletes and good assistant coaches. I've never worried about getting to 200 or 300 (wins). It just happened because I've been in it a long time. I just never thought about it."

Although Snyder has coached a lot of teams and players, he refrains from making any comparisons. He said each team has its own personality and its success also hinges on the quality of the opposition. He noted that he took two teams to the regionals, 1971 and 2003, that were entirely opposites in their overall makeup.

"I never tried to compare teams. In 1970 and `71, we had a Fairland team go to the regionals that was a really good hitting team. This (year's) team had really good pitching," Snyder said.

"I had a team at Ravenswood that made it to the state tournament because we had some really good athletes and I had good pitching as well. We've had some pretty good teams here that didn't make it out of the sectional because we ran into a team that was hot or had a good pitcher."

A 1964 graduate of Ravenswood, Snyder went on to play defensive back at Marshall and earned his varsity letter in 1967.

His football background led him to a coaching career in football as well as baseball. He spent 20 years coaching football before retiring to devote more time toward his job as athletic director.

"I enjoy them both and I still do. I loved football, it just got time consuming," Snyder said. "It was just easier to stay with baseball. You don't have as long a season.

"Football with the weight room and conditioning got to be almost a 12-month job. Baseball is a short season and you try to get your kids involved in the summer programs, then relax until next year."

Snyder said football was more challenging during the games while baseball was a matter of preparation prior to the start of the regular season. That and having good players.

"Once you start playing ball games during baseball season, you're pretty well set. It's a lot more players than it is coaching. They say if you have good players, you're a better coach. If you don't have the players, it doesn't matter how good a coach you are," Snyder said.

Coaching seems to run in the Snyder family. Snyder coached his son, Brent, who has been a football, basketball and track coach at Fairland the past four years. His wife, Donna, coached the Fairland volleyball team for three years and won an Ohio Valley Conference championship.