Troy University Athletics
In The Bullpen With Coach Jeff Crane
2/13/2010 11:11:00 PM | Baseball
February 13, 2010
As we enter our final week of preparation for the 2010 baseball season opener at Riddle-Pace Field, I reflect on the six months of work that our players and staff have put in to prepare for the marathon grind that is a 56-game college baseball season.
I also look ahead to the myriad of opportunities that await the Trojan Baseball Program in 2010 – such as home games in front Troy fans, road trips to play in hostile environments, competing for the Sun Belt Conference title and, hopefully, playing our way into an NCAA regional.
The 2010 Trojans will have to overcome losing 2009 senior players like Trevor Tyre, Michael Precise, Brett Henry, Charley Williams, Travis Burge, Josh Storm, Jeff Green and Steven Morelock. Among those seniors who departed last May were four .300 hitters, a national gold-glove third baseman, a weekend conference starting pitcher, and an abundance of maturity and leadership. That can make such a difference on a ball club over the course of a long season.
When you also consider that Jason Walls and Chris Sorce signed professional contracts late in the summer, after it appeared they would most likely return as seniors, the 2010 Trojans will certainly have a different look and new people in key roles.
However, this Trojan squad has one thing that can make a significant difference in 2010 – a large senior class of veteran players who should know how to take care of business on a daily basis. They should lead our new and younger players down the path of doing things the right way, the winning way.
Our success in 2010 will rely in great measure on the experience and leadership of our 13 Trojan seniors.
I have had the good fortune to be involved with three championship seasons in my years in baseball. As a player, I was a part of the 1987 Class 6A state championship team at Jefferson Davis High School in Montgomery. Two years later, at Cleveland State Community College in Tennessee, I was a part of a junior college state championship team that came within one run of going to the JUCO World Series.
Years later in 2002, I was a member of the Anaheim Angels scouting staff when they defeated the San Francisco Giants in the World Series. Although each team's accomplishment was on a different level, and carried varying degrees of significance to the average fan, all of those teams had a common thread running through the inevitable peaks, valleys, and grinds of a baseball season – strong veteran leadership!
Our 1987 team at Jeff Davis had an AHSAA Hall-of-Fame head coach in Bubba Lewis, and seven senior starters who went on to play college baseball. Our 1989 team at Cleveland State had a highly successful veteran head coach in Steve Longley, and eight sophomore starters who went on to play at a four-year college or professionally.
The 2002 Angels were led by the MLB manager of the year in Mike Scioscia, and had seasoned veterans like Garrett Anderson, Darin Erstad, Tim Salmon and Troy Percival who were not all-stars, but they were fierce competitors and strong veteran leaders. They showed a young cast of teammates how to prepare themselves to succeed with consistency on a daily basis. That 2002 Angels team started the season 8-16, and could easily have crumbled if not for the strong veteran presence felt daily in their clubhouse.
They finished 99-63, and rolled through the Twins, Yankees, and Giants to a world championship.
Quality leadership always filters down from experienced, knowledgeable people to benefit others in an organization to produce a common direction and a consistent work ethic which leads to success.
As I look around here at Troy University I see great leadership daily. Our Chancellor, Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., provides great leadership and has led Troy University to academic acclaim as a global university with more than 30,000 students worldwide. He also shows the vision and resolve to take Trojan athletics to the pinnacle of Division I-A.
Our Athletics Director, Steve Dennis, consistently pushes the coaching staffs to compete with integrity, operate within the parameters of NCAA rules and treat people with class.
Our head baseball coach, Bobby Pierce, was recently inducted into the Alabama Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame and does a phenomenal job of instilling competitiveness, accountability and work ethic in everyone around him. He insists on doing everything the right way, with consistency and class.
As the 2010 baseball season approaches, a large group of Trojan seniors has a tremendous opportunity to write the script for how their college careers will finish, while also leaving an indelible mark on the future of Trojan Baseball. They will do that by laying out the blueprint to our younger players of how to prepare daily to succeed over the course of a long season to achieve our team goals.
No less than eight different Sun Belt Conference teams have been to an NCAA regional in the last decade, and the depth and quality of our league only continues to improve. For a team to compete in a such a deep and competitive league, with many key roles to fill from the previous season, strong senior leadership can make all the difference in 2010.
We are all looking forward to playing in front our Trojan Fans on February 19!
GO TROJANS!
Jeff Crane
