Entry #23 - 3/21/04

It is Sunday evening and I’m going to try to catch you up on all of our games from last week.

This past December Greg Beals, the Head Coach at Ball State called the office to say he was interested in playing a couple of games this season in Johnson City. They were passing through on a spring trip and were looking for someone to play. Although our schedule was basically finished, I thought this was a great opportunity for our program to host the best team in the MAC Conference. Ball State has great baseball tradition and won 36 games the previous year. When I saw them get off the bus, I knew we were going to be in a dogfight. It seemed like every player in their lineup was 6’3” or taller. They really have some good looking kids. On Tuesday night we threw Tim Turner because he needed the work as he only threw 35 pitches the previous weekend. Tim gave us a solid outing and he left the game after five innings with a 9 – 5 lead. Our bullpen was shaky down the stretch, but Caleb Moore came on to pitch a perfect ninth to record his third save of the year.

On Wednesday Matt Traylor led off the game for us with a homerun, but that was about all we could muster as the Ball State pitching staff held us to only six hits the rest of the game. We had some opportunities throughout the game to get back into it, but we couldn’t seem to get that big hit. The final score was 6 – 2.

This weekend was our first home Southern Conference series of the year as UNC Greensboro visited Johnson City. I knew it was going to be a tough series as UNCG came into the weekend with a 13 and 3 record and ranked in the top 30 in the country. But no matter who you play, you have to win at home if you want to have a successful year. This series was our opportunity to get back in the conference race.

On Friday night their starting pitcher carved us up pretty good and they beat us 7 – 3. Stephen Douglas evened the score at 2 - 2 in the 2nd inning when he hit a mammoth homerun to centerfield, but we could not keep them from driving in runs the rest of the game. After the game I told the guys to flush this one out of their system and come back tomorrow ready to go.

And on Saturday that is exactly what we did. We put together our best offensive showing of the year as we collected 23 hits en route to a 18 – 6 victory. Matt Traylor, Blake Church, Greg Roberts and Andy Howdeshell had three hits apiece, while Caleb Moore and Stephen Douglas collected four hit apiece. We had some big innings and really took some good swings. Steven Calicutt gave us his best outing in recent weeks, picking up his second win of the year. Now the stage was set for the “rubber match”.

Today (Sunday) was as tough and disappointing a loss as I have been through in recent years. Going into today we were sitting with a 3 and 5 record in conference play. A win this afternoon would have put us one game below .500 and still in the hunt with 7 more conference series (21 games left). Even better, four of those seven series will be played at home. Instead, by losing today, we are sitting at 3 and 6 and virtually have no room for error. I realize there is a lot of baseball left to be played, but today was a chance to really gain some momentum as we move into the middle portion of our schedule.

It was frustrating because we lost today's game because we could not execute when the pressure was on. We struggled throwing strikes when we needed to. We could not close out an inning, as four of their first five runs came with two outs. We could not make the routine play when they had runners in scoring position. We failed to execute a sacrifice bunt in the late innings. Twice we had runners at 2nd and 3rd, and bases loaded with less than two outs and we failed to score. And finally, we could not get that clutch hit with runners in scoring position. Our players are playing hard and I can't fault their effort, but we struggle when it is crunch time. I am still looking for that guy who in basketball wants the ball in his hands to take the last shot with the game on the line. Not to take away anything from UNCG, but we gave the game away today. Their players were simply tougher than ours. Although we had a chance to tie or win it in the last inning, baseball is unique because your opportunities to win a game or prevent your team from losing a game can occur at any time. It may be in the first inning or the fifth inning, but when the opportunity arises, no matter what inning, good teams will capitalize and will not let their opponents off the hook.

In our pre game meeting with the team today, I explained to our players how important this game was. I wanted them to approach this game as a "must win." I told them that no matter what your role is today, play and participate with as much energy, enthusiasm and passion as you have. Leave the field both mentally and physically exhausted. Any time you play on Sunday with a chance to win the series, it is a "must win". You just have to have it! As I left the clubhouse, I asked Coach Goulet if he thought they got the message. He said he didn’t have a good feeling, and he ended up being right.

I have followed and been associated with Southern Conference baseball now for 15 years. Since arriving at ETSU, one of the biggest obstacles we have had to overcome is realizing the importance and the passion you have to have when you play on the weekends. The programs that finish consistently in the top of our league all have this. They have the ability to turn it up a notch and fight you "tooth and nail" all weekend long. There is no love lost. You despise your opponent and will do whatever it takes to win. It is a war. Five years ago when I took over at ETSU, the program was on life support. One of my first indicators of this was when I asked the players and coaches who had been in the program who our big rival was, they couldn't name one. I knew right then we had a ways to go. Now five years later, talent wise I think we are right on schedule. If you look at our statistics we have many players having good years and playing at a high level. We are much improved, but there are two things that are holding us back. First is the execution of routine plays (throwing strikes, fielding routine ground balls, bonehead base running, not putting the ball in play, etc.) when the pressure is on. And second, is having the hatred to lose. I know our players love to win, that is natural. Everybody loves to win. But our players have to learn to hate to lose. Winning a championship must become more important and especially more personal.

Charlie Taaffe, my football coach at The Citadel used to share a quote with us from Genghis Khan. The quote is, "A man's greatest joy in life is to break his enemies and to take from them all the things that have been theirs." This is exactly how I remember competing in the Southern Conference. In 1990 when we won the Southern Conference Championship, it broke an amazing streak of five consecutive years that Western Carolina had won under Coach Jack Leggett. Seeing them pile on the mound during that streak burned inside our program. They instantly became our big rival.

Southern Conference baseball has always been intense and every weekend there are always close games. Although I don't like it, amongst the top teams, there has always been a lot of "jawing" between teams. Rarely does anything ever come from it, but when you have players of similar ability on the field, close games are inevitable and emotions run high. 99% of the time the tougher and more intense competitor is going to win. That is how it was when I was a player in this league and it is still like that today. After the series is over you shake your opponent's hand and get ready for the next series. During the first two games of this series there was some “jawing” going on between our guys and UNCG. As a coach you don’t want your players to get caught up in all that, but you also don’t want them to back down either.

Todd Raleigh (Head Coach at Western Carolina) and Rodney Hennon (Head Coach at Georgia Southern) were great players at Western Carolina, when I was a player at The Citadel. We had some tremendous battles as players. When I speak to Todd and Rodney prior to a series or at our coaches meetings, we still talk about the old days and how we used to get after each other. But after it is all said and done, we still want to beat each other just as much as ever. The only thing that has changed is the fact that we are now coaches instead of players. It is just good old fashioned competition. There is mutual respect but there is no love lost. I doubt I'll be vacationing with either of them in the near future.

Some say you have to have success to create rivalries, and this may be true. But more importantly you have to want what others have. That sounds barbaric, selfish and cold, but that is what winning championships are about. I bet if Roy Williams ever wins an ACC or NCAA basketball Championship at North Carolina, it will be because he and his players are simply tired of seeing Duke win it every year. Their passion and desire to take away the championship from Duke will have to burn inside them every single day. This is the same fire that I want to burn inside the bellies of my players. I'm not quite sure if they have grasped this concept yet. The wanting of what others have is the way it is supposed to be when you’re fighting from the bottom up. In a competitive environment, nice guys finish last. Now outside the lines this is definitely not the behavior I want my players to have. Successful people in this world are the ones who give of themselves and help others become successful. But why do you think most Fortune 500 companies want to hire former successful athletes? It is not because they know these people have a great passion to win or to be successful, but because they know these people have a severe hatred of losing and a fear of not being successful. When it is crunch time, these companies know they will get the job done.

Throughout the course of a year every game is important, but the weekend conference games are the most important. Our ball club needs to realize this. You have to turn it up a notch on the weekend. During the week you play games in order to prepare you for the weekend. For us, sometimes those games are games we know we should win, and sometimes they are games against a ranked opponent where we have the chance to prove to the entire country that we can compete at the highest level. Either way, as a player you have to realize that you only get so many opportunities to step between the lines and compete. You have to be ready and make sure not to waste any of those opportunities. Once our players figure this out I know we will begin to win Championships here at ETSU.

We have another tough week ahead of us. The University of Tennessee will visit Johnson City on Tuesday evening and then we are on the road again for a weekend conference series at Elon. Tennessee is having a tremendous season and is coming off a series win of Mississippi State in Starkville. Winning at Mississippi State is not an easy thing to do. If anyone had doubts about whether Tennessee was for real this year, I think they have answered those questions. They will bring a very confident, talented, experienced and one of the best teams in the nation to Johnson City. Needless to say it will be a great challenge. If our players can't get excited to play in this game then they need to have their pulse checked.

Until Next Time...

Coach Skole