I started my coaching career at Ohio Wesleyan University in March of 1984. I was an assistant baseball coach at Ohio State University when I got a call from Kevin Colbert now the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Steelers but in 1984 the head baseball coach at Ohio Wesleyan. Kevin told me that he had accepted a position with Blesto, a professional football scouting service. He needed to be on the job the next week and asked if I was interested in the head baseball position job at Ohio Wesleyan. I was interested, received an interview and was offered the job by Mary Parker, the associate athletic director who was filling in for athletic director Dick Gordin who was on sabbatical.
I remember I took the team over three days before their first game. We were members of the Ohio Athletic Conference in our last season in the league and we were not real good. The first time I actually saw the team was our first game against Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. We lost 5-2 that day and I remember returning to the hotel and telling the guys to change and come out to the parking lot for some hitting lessons. In the pouring rain, they stood there and thought what kind of a nut case did Coach Colbert leave us with. I had to admit it was a culture shock. Leaving a Big Ten program just two seasons removed from the NCAA tournament to take over a team that had won 8 games the previous season, even I was questioning my sanity.
But what drove us that spring to wins over the nation’s number one team and a double header sweep of the College of Wooster, costing them a shot at the division title, was the knowledge that next year, we would begin competition in a new league and we needed to get ready for it. The upstart North Coast Athletic Conference was to begin competition in the fall of 1984 and come hell or high water I was going to have this baseball team ready for it. The NCAC was the first league in small college sports to offer equal championships for men and women’s teams. I was excited to be a part of it.
I want everyone to understand how special the NCAC is to me. My former athletic director and long time friend Dr. Richard Gordin helped start the league. He told me about the secret meetings and the discussions and how much work went into the start of the league. Its first two commissioners Dennis Collins and Keri Alexander Luchowski became great friends and mentors. I worked for four presidents, two interim presidents and alongside some of the finest people in college sports in my time in the NCAC. I was so lucky to have the experience I did.
It breaks my heart to see the NCAC along with dozens of other leagues has suspended fall sports for 2020. The first time in 36 years the balls won’t bounce, the whistles won’t blow and the fans won’t cheer. The silence will be deafening! But we all know the decision the leagues, administrators and presidents have made is absolutely the right one. It still stinks! It hurts! I understand! I feel for seniors everywhere who last spring and this fall have had their seasons turned upside down. But it is games we are talking about. It is life we are fighting for.
I ask everyone who cares or has ever seen an NCAA game to do your part to get the coaches; the kids and the fans back in the game by simply following CDC guidelines and wearing a mask! It’s actually easy. Together we can be the change needed to stop this virus. Let’s make this the last silent season in college sports.
Oh Geez Sports 