Fire Gene Stephenson

[1972Shocker]

Pretty sure Travis Wycoff is out of baseball. Last I knew he took a profession, non-sport related job in the Dallas area.

I'd like to know Shane Dennis' interest in being more involved in the program.

Shane is an interesting guy. Talks a great game. Seems very knowledgable. AFAIK, no coaching experience.

I've always wondered if he isn't hanging around to wait Gene out or to wait Mike Kennedy out.

My guess is he would like Mike's gig, although Mike doesn't show any signs of slowing up.

Or Shane may be perfectly happy with his current lot in life. Who knows.

[shox1989]

Pretty sure Travis Wycoff is out of baseball. Last I knew he took a profession, non-sport related job in the Dallas area.

I'd like to know Shane Dennis' interest in being more involved in the program.

I heard Travis was selling insurance. I heard he needed to spend more time with his family. Being the pitching coach at DBU was taking away too much quality time from his kids.

[1972Shocker]

Mark Standiford intrigues me even even though he has no experience coaching at the D-1 level.

However, Mark has made his living as a "teacher" of baseball as owner-operator of Sluggers Academy, a 50,000 square foot baseball academy and athletic complex, across from the West Urban/TRYC complexes at Ridge & 13th. Mark has operated Sluggers for the past 13 years helping young players sharpen their skills. He has helped more than 100 athletes advance to college-level baseball.

Tabor's Pre-Standiford and Post-Standiford baseball records are as follows:

Pre-Standiford:
2005-06 17-31
2006-07 22-23
2007-08 19-25

Post-Standiford:
2008-09 22-31
2009-10 33-19
2010-11 45-14
2011-12 22-4

No I am not Mark's agent and, in fact, I have no idea if he would have any interest in taking over the WSU program. I suspect he would, but I don't know Mark personally. However, I do like to see trends like that on a Coach's resume.

He has been able to continue with his ownership and involvement with Sluggers during his tenure at Tabor. Whether being involved with Sluggers presents any issues at the D-1 level I don't have a clue. As an aside Matt Baty, a former All-Big 12 player for KU out of Maize, is a Coach/Instructor at Sluggers. Matt, of course, is currently the Assistant Athletic Director, Development at Wichita State.

Just some food for thought.

[shox1989]

As much as I love me some former Shockers, there is a difference between being a good skipper, and being a good college skipper. IMO, we need to go after a proven College head coach. One that knows how to recruit, and knows how to recruit to the midwest. You can be the best manager in baseball, but if you can't recruit, you're going nowhere fast in college baseball.

I totally agree. All of this talk of bringing in someone with absolutely no college coaching experience is very scary. Gene has managed to recruit on a very small budget and with getting at least 1/3rd of his players from Kansas. Whenever Gene leaves, the next person is probably going to need to spend a lot more money on recruiting and probably won't be able to be hampered with the 33% rule (which means we will be spending more money on more out of state scholarships). I would hope that when the time comes we would be able to get a big name coach with a lot of post season experience.

[shox1989]

Mark Standiford intrigues me even even though he has no experience coaching at the D-1 level.

However, Mark has made his living as a "teacher" of baseball as owner-operator of Sluggers Academy, a 50,000 square foot baseball academy and athletic complex, across from the West Urban/TRYC complexes at Ridge & 13th. Mark has operated Sluggers for the past 13 years helping young players sharpen their skills. He has helped more than 100 athletes advance to college-level baseball.

Tabor's Pre-Standiford and Post-Standiford baseball records are as follows:

Pre-Standiford:
2005-06 17-31
2006-07 22-23
2007-08 19-25

Post-Standiford:
2008-09 22-31
2009-10 33-19
2010-11 45-14
2011-12 22-4

No I am not Mark's agent and, in fact, I have no idea if he would have any interest in taking over the WSU program. I suspect he would, but I don't know Mark personally. However, I do like to see trends like that on a Coach's resume.

He has been able to continue with his ownership and involvement with Sluggers during his tenure at Tabor. Whether being involved with Sluggers presents any issues at the D-1 level I don't have a clue. As an aside Matt Baty, a former All-Big 12 player for KU out of Maize, is a Coach/Instructor at Sluggers. Matt, of course, is currently the Assistant Athletic Director, Development at Wichita State.

Just some food for thought.

I would feel a lot more comfortable with Mark as a hitting coach not as the head coach. I would hope that our next head coach would be someone with a lot of division 1 coaching experience and post season experience. Although I personally wouldn't mind seeing Kemnitz given a chance to take over once Gene retires (my first preference would be for Brent to remain as the pitching coach, but that I don't know how probable that would be).

[1972Shocker]

All of this talk of bringing in someone with absolutely no college coaching experience is very scary.

And who was talking about that? Standiford and Wycoff both have college coaching experience and Hooper has professional coaching/managing experience. I was not aware that Wycoff recently left coaching which would indicate he would not be interested anyway.

That said if I had to make a bet they will probably turn over the reigns to Brent Kemnitz. Whether he would retain or replace JT I have no idea. That would be the "safe" move and may have already been promised to Brent. He often says he has had many offers over the years to leave.

The biggest issue I have with Brent is that I truly believe his heart belongs to OU. He was probably more than a little disappointed that didn't work out. Nevertheless, Brent has given WSU a lot of years so I suppose I could live with him getting a shot if he wants it.

[1972Shocker]

The last head coach we hired wasn't exactly a household name in college coaching circles. I think he was an assistant at OU for 5 or 6 years.

If the primary prerequisite is extensive D-1 coaching and post-season experience we already have that in place.

Perhaps that's your point.

[shox1989]

The last head coach we hired wasn't exactly a household name in college coaching circles. I think he was an assistant at OU for 5 or 6 years.

If the primary prerequisite is extensive D-1 coaching and post-season experience we already have that in place.

Perhaps that's your point.

When we hired Gene in 1978 we had nothing. No field, no stadium, no program. The best we could do was to hire an assistant coach. It turned out to be a great hire and turned out far better than anyone could have possibly hoped for in their wildest dreams but it was a big risk.

I would hope with our facilities, tradition, and community support that we have today that we could hire a proven division 1 winner and not have to take a huge risk on a assistant coach or a small college head coach.

[1972Shocker]

@shox1989: I wouldn't put too much stock in my opinions on this or really any other matter. I do what I can to support WSU athletics financially but I am strictly small potatoes and I can assure you, my opinions reach no further than ShockerNet. I'm simply too irrelevant to really matter, but I enjoy talking Shocker sports and I like thinking outside the box also.

[shox1989]

@shox1989 I wouldn't put too much stock in my opinions on this or really any other matter. I do what I can to support WSU athletics financially but I am strictly small potatoes and I can assure you, my opinions reach no further than ShockerNet. I'm simply too irrelevant to really matter, but I enjoy talking Shocker sports and I like thinking outside the box also.

Your ideas are sounding a lot better to me. I just did a quick google search on how much big time college baseball coaches are getting paid today and I became quite depressed. They apparently make a whole lot more than I thought.

The first article I found was from 2010 and it was about the LSU baseball coach getting a pay raise. He made $625,000 plus with incentives and his radio shows etc his whole pay package he can make close to $1 million a year (and this was a couple of years ago). The article did say that he was one of the top 5 paid baseball coaches in the country. I found another article from 2011 that said Augie Garrido was making over $1 million per year.

I found another article from 2007 announcing George Horton as the new baseball coach at Oregon. In 2007 his base salary was $400,000 with $285,000 additional pay making his total package worth $685,000. Another 2007 article from the biz of baseball talked about Horton's hire and said that most baseball coaches in the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 made more than Horton. It said baseball coaching salaries were really escalating. This was in 2007. I had no idea the BCS type baseball coaches are getting paid this kind of money.

I quickly realized that once Gene steps down we probably aren't going to be able to afford a big time proven coach (although maybe someone from a smaller proven winner could be realistic - an ORU or DBU maybe, although if they are a hot coach we are not going to be able to outbid a BCS school for their services). I think the idea of Kemnitz taking over or giving Standiford a shot sounds a lot better to me (and more realistic) than when I first read it.

[1972Shocker]

As you pointed out when we hired Gene we had nothing baseball-wise. However, Gene had the advantage that baseball was a second thought at the great majority of D-1 schools and he took advantage of that.

However, as we have seen the major conferences had started to put big money into their baseball programs over the last decade to the point that while the WSU baseball program is still as good as any non-BCS program it is probably just average among the BSC programs.

I really don't see any SEC, PAC-12, Big 12 or ACC coaches taking the Wichita State job. Not sure how many attractive candidates are in the Big 10. Perhaps, as you suggest, we could entice a Rob Walton at ORU or a Dan Heefner from DBU. That's probably the level we are looking at if want D-1 head coaching experience. However, not sure these guys would necessarily be able to out recruit a Mark Standiford.

The energy, drive, and determination of youth sometimes can overcome a lot of experience. Sometimes it's good to be too dumb and fearless to know you aren't supposed to be able accomplish something. Probably the case with Gene when he was hired in 1978.

In any case, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[Shockerman]

What about reworking Gene's contract to free up some money for a high quality assistant or two? Take the handcuffs off in terms of scholly restrictions. Maybe hire a Hooper to head up recruiting and player development. Instead off tossing a legend of the game out, we should at least try to shake things up a little bit first. This is all assuming he hasn't lost the fire and is willing to try something different, all doubtful :(

[shoxlax]

Let's quit finding WSU connections and think outside the box......

Kevin Seitzer.

[WSUwatcher]

Let's quit finding WSU connections and think outside the box......

Kevin Seitzer.

Kevin Seitzer? Why -- because you like saying his name?

[SubGod22]

Kevin Seitzer? Why -- because you like saying his name?

He's one hell of a hitting coach