Travis Haney - Gamecock Glory: The University of South Carolina Baseball Teams Journey to the 2010 NCAA Championship

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
BASEBALL TEAMS JOURNEY TO THE
2010 NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP

forewords by
M ARK C ALVI & C HAD H OLBROOK

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2011 by Travis Haney

All rights reserved

Front cover image courtesy of Omaha World-Herald.

First published 2011

Second printing 2011

e-book edition 2011

ISBN 978.1.61423.184.4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haney, Travis.

Gamecock glory : the University of South Carolina baseball teams journey to the 2010 NCAA championship / Travis Haney.

p. cm.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-254-0

1. University of South Carolina--Baseball--History. 2. South Carolina Gamecocks (Baseball team) 3. College World Series (Baseball) (2010) I. Title.

GV875.12.U75H36 2011

796.357630975771--dc22

2011003456

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

In memoriam:
Herman Madden and Bayler Teal, called home in 2010.
Through Christs love, you live on.

Dont trip, dont trip, dont trip!

That was all I kept saying to myself as I sprinted to join the dog pile that was forming on the mound at Coastal Carolina. What a feeling. I felt the weight of seventeen years, and hundreds of former players, lifted from my back. I got up and hugged everybody I could get my hands on. I then looked for the two most important people in my life, my wife, Kaylie, and daughter, Taylor. They had sneaked by security over the dugout and bolted for the field. As I hugged my wife, I felt the long, hard and fantastic years of this crazy profession just blend into one moment. We were finally going to Omaha. It was worth it! There had been times when I wasnt sure.

The 2010 team made it easy to see it was worth it. All the hours, days and nights on the road, recruiting or helping recruit these players, was all worth it. This team had talent, personality, attitude and a toughness that wore other teams down. It was especially evident when we played teams like Oklahoma, Arizona State, Clemson and UCLA. You can debate talent all you want, but our kids believed they were the best. Many may say it, but few believe it. All twenty-seven players moved in the same direction with a burning desire to win. What made this team so special is the way it responded to losing. All teams respond well to winning. True winners find a way to turn a loss into a victory. It would have been so easy to say, Well, it was a great season after the Florida series and the SEC Tournament. They bonded together even tighter. They played for each other and the program. There were no names on the back of their jerseys by the end of the seasononly the name on the front.

As Scott Wingo touched home plate in Omaha, this time I watched the dog pile form. It was theirs. A team with pitchers who had ice water in their veins, and a group of hard-nosed position players with a flair for the dramatic, had done the unthinkable. A group of kids from all sorts of walks of life were now national champions. To them, I say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Aside from my daughter being born, you have given me the greatest moment in my life. It was an honor to be around you guys. I will always love each and every one of you.

I know that even if I had tripped, one of you would have picked me up.

Mark Calvi
South Carolina pitching coach, 200510

When Coach Tanner gave me the bunt-for-base-hit sign, to give to Scott Wingo, it was the first time in my coaching career during a game that I felt a little uptight. We were a pitch away from having the leadoff hitter on base with no one out. Then, as a coach, your mind starts racing. You actually stop, just for a second, and think about the fact that you are in the national championship series against UCLA. You think, This could be our chance, maybe our only chance, to win the national championship. It was shaping up to be the opportunity of a lifetime for our coaches, our players, our families, the university and the state of South Carolina. This could be it, I remember thinking. We may never, ever get this opportunity again.

Ball four!

The heart starts racing a little faster, the anxiety level picks up. We were three bases away from history. Two hundred and seventy feet. Next up was Evan Marzilli, a freshman. The tension on the field could be cut with a knife. You could feel it and you could see it on all the players faces. Sure, there was pressure on UCLA, but there was also pressure on Evan to get the bunt down. After the first pitch got by the catcher and went to the backstop, you could tell Evan was relieved as Scott got to second, 180 feet from home plate and a national title. That wild pitch relaxed him. The odds were now in our favor. We kept the sacrifice bunt on because it was so important to get that runner to third base with fewer than two outs, with two of our best hitters coming up, Whit Merrifield and Jackie Bradley Jr. After one unsuccessful attempt, Evan laid down a perfect sacrifice to advance Wingo to third, to me in the third base coaching box.

Ninety feet away. We were ninety feet away from burying some curse I had heard so much about. So many things were going through my mind. How was UCLA going to play this? With one out, would the Bruins walk Whit and Jackie to set up the double play? Or would they pitch to Whit and take their chances? Wingo and I may have looked like cool customers at third base before the pitcher toed the rubber, but Im here to tell you we werent. I had to tell Wingo so many things, but it was important to me that he heard one thing in particular: No matter what, react back to third base on a line drive. We have to be in position to tag up if the balls caught. I played out so many scenarios in my mind in the seconds before the count on Merrifield got to 2-0. I thought, If its a shallow fly ball, do I send Wingo? High chopper in the infield, do I send him? Swinging bunt in front of the plate, do we try to score? All of those thoughts, and so many more, were going through my head. Then two things hit me, seconds before the 2-0 pitch was thrown, that calmed me down. The first thought was that there was no way they were going to let Jackie, the College World Series MVP, have a chance to win the game. They would walk him no matter what. As a coach, that told me that we had to be aggressive at third. If Whit hit a shallow fly ball, I had to send Scott because they were not going to let Jackie hit. Slow roller, swinging bunt or shallow fly ball off Merrifields bat, and we were going to try to score. This was our chance.

The other thought that set me at peace, one completely different, was seven-year-old Bayler Teal. For some reason, in that moment, I thought of him. He had died late in the previous week, on the same night we needed twelve innings to beat Oklahoma. That little guy, fighting cancer, put things in perspective for all of us. I knew his parents, Rob and Risha, were in attendance. I knew Bayler was looking out for us. He was not going to let us lose, and that was comforting.