He still drinks Diet Sundrop, something he's loved since growing up in Gaston County. He constantly makes special trips out of his house on weekday afternoons just to grab a 12-ounce can from the quickie mart down the road.

Dease also still believes in setting an example for the students in his history class by keeping a poster of Clint Eastwood stationed behind his desk -- even if many of his students don't even know who Eastwood is, much less "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."

He's also a baseball traditionalist, and always will be. When several of the coaches in the Central Carolina Scholastic Summer Baseball League proposed rule changes calling for liberal re-entry and 11-man batting lineups, Dease wasted no time putting his foot down.

Ironically, Dease is included in a baseball generation that forever changed the game domestically, perhaps not for the better. In the mid-1970s, he was among the first to play with aluminum bats.

"We called them Tennessee Thumpers back in those days," said Dease, who has coached the Orange Panthers for 20 years and recently won his first state championship. "It took some getting used to. You could buy them for about $45 back then."

Nowadays, they cost about $300. Despite the big price tag, aluminum bats have supplanted their wooden counterparts throughout all levels of amateur baseball.

Wood isn't entirely extinct, though. For the past three years, Orange High has hosted a four-team summer tournament featuring wooden bats, as opposed to the standard aluminum bats high schools teams have grown used to for the past 35 years. East Chapel Hill, Raleigh Broughton and Smithfield-Selma also participated.

Over the weekend, the Panthers, coming off winning the 2-A state championship, defeated East Chapel Hill and SSS to win the tournament.

Orange High has produced several players good enough to move on to professional careers in recent years. Former Panthers Josh Horton, Chris Maples and Matt McKay have all played professionally over the past decade. Since the professional ranks will forever stick with wooden bats, logic would dictate the quicker players learn how to hit with traditional bats, the better.

But Dease says that isn't always the case.

"We had one player this weekend break three bats because he couldn't find the sweet spot," said Dease. "Some can't wait for this tournament because it's a change from what they're used to. They'll stick with it for a few days, then ask me when can we go back to the aluminum bats."

Can baseball ever go back to the way it was pre-aluminum? Not likely, if for no other reason than cost. Wooden bats cost around $140 dollars nowadays, but break much easier.

In short, aluminum bats have created a dual universe around baseball. Little league, high school and college players now grit their teeth on the metal. If they're lucky enough to get to a level of wooden bats, they must adjust -- and quickly.