Let’s start with this point and get it out of the way immediately. Legendary head baseball coach Jim Morris isn’t going anywhere, unless he personally chooses to step down.
Neither president Donna Shalala or director of athletics Shawn Eichorst are going to fire the two-time national champion skipper after a putrid weekend of baseball at the Coral Gables Regional, despite the frustration of a fan base that expected more from this recently-ended baseball season.
Scream it until you’re blue in the face. State for your audience that a performance of this nature is unacceptable at ‘The U’. Kick your dog. Punch a Gator. Slap a Nole. Do what you must to get out your frustration and then re-join the rest of us in what is reality.
Morris has spent the past nineteen seasons at the University of Miami. He’s compiled an 850-344-3 record, won two national titles, has had several deep runs at the College World Series, brought eleven teams to Omaha and has coached-up a ton of talent, getting it big league-ready.
In other words, it’s going to take more than a down cycle to bring the Morris era to an end; even if that decline started in top of the ninth against Georgia in the opening game of the 2008 College World Series.
While 2012 proved to be another up-and-down season – sweeping second-ranked North Carolina months back, while getting outscored 22-4 by visiting Stony Brook and Missouri State this past weekend, hosting a home regional – in relative terms, it’s a success when you reach your conference title game and head to the post-season for the fortieth year in a row and host a regional.
In other words, not too many coaches will lose their job for a 36-23 run in the ACC and a home regional, despite how it played out, and when you couple that with a legend like Morris, fans are flat-out dreaming if they think any president or athletic director in the nation would show a coach of this caliber the door.
After almost four decades of the ultimate success and being deemed one of the premier programs in the nation, it’s understandable that Miami fans expect more – but news flash, so do coaches and players. They fell short, didn’t play Cane-caliber baseball and between now and first pitch next February, that is the one thing that does have to change.
Brian London talked about the state of Miami baseball in his allCanes Radio Daily CanesFix this Monday morning – some of which resonated, other points not as much.
Still, ‘The Beast’ stays consistent with his stance and there is some truth that college baseball in 2012 is not the same as twenty years ago, and most of his opinions hold water.
UM is no longer an Independent. That hurts. More road trips and tougher competition takes its toll, costs you a handful of games a year and impacts your post-season seeding.
Furthermore, tuition is way up, while the economy remains down. There’s also much more competition regarding in-state big time programs in this day and age. Beast has reminded listeners and blog readers of those points all season and again, none can be disagreed with.
On some level, fans simply have to accept that UM will never again see the success of the 80s or 90s again. College athletics has changed drastically and as a small private school, baseball is going to take a hit that football and basketball don’t deal with.
All that being said, the story doesn’t end there. Fans shouldn’t have to just accept this breakdown and move on. Harder to recruit. Too many kids going pro. Scholarships too hard to divvy up. So many other in-state schools competing. Blah, blah, blah.
Where are the answers regarding righting the ship? Should Morris be around another few years, what changes?
Losing to Stony Brook and Missouri State wasn’t a crime. It happens. This is baseball. Anyone can beat anyone on any given day and average teams can get hot while once hot teams can ice up as the year rolls on.
Look at Georgia Tech weeks back. The Yellow Jackets needed to win the regular season finale just to earn the eight-seed in the ACC Tournament. From there, a 4-0 run, beating Florida State, Virginia, Clemson and Miami en route to the conference title.
No, where Miami fans are livid the Monday after is how the Canes lost. Sloppy baseball. Bone-headed mistakes. Mental errors. A lack of heart. To see this program plagued with brain farts in late May, same as they were in February – that’s what drives you nuts. The lack of growth. The inability to correct fundamental mistakes that seemed to be the case all year.
Go back and check the box score from those twenty-three losses this spring and there are too many common mistakes. A slew of fielding errors. Pitching breaking down late in the game. Bats going cold.
You can forgive a team that loses ball games, but the struggle comes in accepting mediocrity. Make the same mistakes over and over and the offenses becomes criminal.
So to that point, how does Miami ensure the mistakes of 2012 don’t plague this team in 2013?
For the record, neither firing Morris or keeping him will immediately change anything. The Beast made his point about the grass not always being greener when hiring / firing coaches and there is some truth in that, though it’s not as much the firing as who a university chooses to hire.
When it comes to UM, there have been a few wins and a handful of losses on the hiring process over the past two decades, which again, is something the anti-Morris camp must take into consideration. All of that, “Fire Morris” stuff is pointless if the next guy hired isn’t a proven gem, or an up and comer that is all-in regarding what it will take to turn the Canes around.
Look at the gridiron since Butch Davis left in early 2001. While Larry Coker was the player favorite to take over a championship-ready program, he was a terrible long-term solution from day one.
Coker was a perennial assistant and nothing about him said number one guy, leader or top dog, but when a program is full of seniors who stuck around to win a ring, per being sold by their former coach, there can be some pressure to hire from within and keep some continuity.
Prior to taking over as Miami’s head coach in 2001, Coker’s last head coaching gig was in 1978 … at Claremore High School in Oklahoma.
From there, a journeyman assistant. Tulsa running backs and quarterbacks coach before eventually being named offensive coordinator. Next up, a seven-year stint running the offense at Oklahoma State, followed by four years doing the same at rival Oklahoma.
Coker then spent three years coaching defensive backs – and then quarterbacks – at Ohio State, before heading south to run Miami’s offense for six seasons under Davis.
Where Miami failed in the hiring of Coker was the lack of a long-term vision. What if he rattled off a twenty-four game win-streak, back-to-back title games and won a ring? How would you be able to get rid of a guy who won with a previous coach’s players if he wasn’t able to recruit, develop and teach his own to perform?
Coker went 12-0, 12-1 and 11-2 before stringing together seasons of 9-3, 9-3 and 7-6, which got him fired.
His swan song in 2006 also sported a pre-game logo stomp at Louisville, an on-the-field brawl with Florida International, a four-game losing streak to close the regular season – on the heels of the murder of beloved player Bryan Pata – and a bowl game, against Nevada, on the blue turf in Boise. The 7-6 run was Miami’s worst since 5-6 in 1997, when knee-deep in the probation era.
Without all that, Coker might’ve seen another year, too. Dig up some press from that era and many in the media were toting his nice-guy persona, his 35-3 start, his national title – and one bad call from being the lone team in the BCS era to win two straight championships.
Beast posed a question regarding the Randy Shannon years, asking if Coker could’ve fared the same, as Shannon went a paltry 28-22 over his four seasons heading up UM’s program, and if so, then was it worth letting Larry go?
Coker could’ve easily have put up a similar record. Maybe a little better, maybe a little worse, but nothing that would’ve made much of a difference, either way.
Still, the real issue in both cases was who was hired after the previous guy was fired.
Same can be said when talking about Perry Clark replacing Leonard Hamilton on the hardwood or Frank Haith being hired in Clark’s wake.
Where Miami seems to have finally turned things around is with it’s two newest coaches - Al Golden replacing Shannon and Jim Larranaga stepping in for the disgraced Haith – as both took less-than-desirable opportunities based on the state of both programs.
When Miami searched for a football coach in December 2006, there weren’t many options. UM quickly pursued Rutgers head coach, and former Canes defensive coordinator, Greg Schiano, but he turned down the opportunity that was rumored to be $2M a year.
From there, a slew of lesser names were paraded out. That, or pipe dream coaches that fans clamored for, rooting their opinion in emotion and frustration, but zero logic, assuming that a Chris Petersen would leave Boise State or Gary Patterson wanted to walk away from the time put in at Texas Christian, building a winner.
That’s the name of the game when things go south in Coral Gables. Fans let frustration turn their thoughts completely delusional regarding the desirability of the program, expecting coaches who have built things up elsewhere to simply walk away, uproot their families and run to Miami programs that have had marginal success as of late, coupled with a fickle fan base and a lack of support.
When Morris was hired by Miami in 1994, the Hurricanes were a powerhouse. Between 1978 and 1992, then-head coach Ron Fraser won two rings and reached Omaha eleven of fourteen seasons. He had built a machine and coupled with Morris, it was business as usual.
Fraser built Miami up from nothing, retired at fifty-eight years old and the keys were turned over to assistant Brad Kelley, who went 36-22 in one season and was replaced by Morris – a very hot commodity at the time, having built a mini-powerhouse of his own over twelve seasons at Georgia Tech, winning forty-plus games his final four seasons in Atlanta.
Sadly, that formula doesn’t exist for this era of Miami baseball. Not four seasons removed from Omaha. Not with so many state schools growing, batting for recruits and winning the way they are.
There’s also the underlying theme of a fan base who wants to run a current legend out of town, without exercising any patience and letting him right the ship. Not exactly a selling point for coaches currently at programs where fans are on board, turn out in droves and live and die with their alma mater.
There the side that wants to run Morris out of town and the other that spouts off his past accolades, in effort to justify his staying on. Both camps have valid points, but again, neither are addressing what needs to be done between now and next February to avoid another run like 2012 provided.
Some Morris and UM’s athletic department might want to think about while preparing for next year:
- With so much talk about Miami’s heralded second-ranked incoming class and the fact that so many prospects could choose MLB over college in today’s draft, something needs to be done on the recruiting front in regards to a different modus operandi.
If too many highly-touted prospect are leaving Miami at the altar prior to Signing Day, then Morris – and assistant coach / recruiting guru Gino DiMare – need to change their approach on the recruiting trail, putting more focus on college-bound kids that might not shine as brightly as next-level talent, but kids that have that intangible.
The same way great Miami football coaches have sniffed out two- or three-star talent that has been coached up to superstar level, the same needs to be done with baseball.
Miami cannot hang its hopes on kids that have a better shot at going pro, versus coming to Coral Gables. Yes, go after some top talent, but spend more energy on Miami-type kids who want to play for ‘The U’. Kids that will put in their four years and are more concerned with team and winning than they are with dollar signs and the MLB lifestyle.
(Note: As this piece is being penned, two of Miami’s top signees, shortstop Carlos Correa and outfielder Albert Almora were taken first and sixth in today’s MLB Draft, putting a huge hole in what looked to be a stellar recruiting class.)
- The re-addition of DiMare to the staff was a good move by Morris and hopefully it pays dividends this recruiting season, but what about assistants like J.D. Arteaga and Lou Palmisano? Arteaga has been on staff since 2003 and just spent his third as assistant coach, while Palmisano just completed year one at Miami, focusing on hitting while working with catchers.
I won’t pretend to know how either graded out this season, but when it comes to pitching and hitting, the Canes were downright awful at times this year. Doesn’t take a guru to see that. The casual fan who watched their share of games is more than informed.
As Morris’ tenure at UM winds down – he’ll be sixty-three soon after the 2013 season begins – one last run at Omaha will be dependent on his coaching staff. Does he have full faith in his guys and is this a crew that can lead Miami back to the top? I can’t answer that, but he needs to – and if there are any questions surrounding Arteaga and Palmisano, this off-season is the time to address them and make moves.
- The pro-Morris camp spends a lot of time talking about getting hurt in the draft, the scholarships woes, the struggles of being a private university and what not — but none of that addresses the current kids on the roster making fundamental errors that were taught proper in little league, as well as the mental errors that have run rampant with this program for way too long.
For the past few seasons Florida has owned Miami mentally. The Canes seemingly pee down their leg whenever things get tight against the Gators. Look at the past few post-seasons, as well as game three of this year’s series. UM dropped the first two games and took a 5-3 lead into the top of the ninth, before losing 8-5.
Again, losing is part of the game, but whether it’s a ninth inning collapse, another error from shortstop Steven Perez or E.J. Encinosa walking / plunking batters or giving up key hits instead of closing out the ninth, there was little growth this season regarding such meltdowns. As a fan, you could literally feel that dark cloud rolling in during those final innings as Miami gave away too many games by playing stupid baseball.
If Morris and staff couldn’t correct this during the season, what will be done this off-season? Honestly, there’s no room for the notion that coaches have done all the could and these kids need to perform. That made sense at times during the year, but there needs to be some mental growth with these kids from 2012 to 2013 and the question remains, how will this current staff fix things?
This was a disappointing season that ended with a huge thud and while it won’t cost Morris his job, there will certainly be more pressure entering next season that there was this one. How will he and these kids respond? That in itself may be the answer regarding a coaching search this time next year, or renewed faith in a legend.
There’s no crime in Morris getting one more year to get things right, but if there’s no growth, no game plan and the same type of play this time next year, even the truest Morris apologist will have a hard time building a case entering 2014. – C.B.
I hope the folks with the $$$$$ do not invest in this bunko. Both you and Brian want to stay on the “inside” and that means cozying up to the existing staff.
What was the attendance for the second game? Full house at a nicely renovated facility? That,s the real story, not the crapola you and The Beast are trying to sell.
Hey Ken – I cover the Canes from San Diego, haven’t lived in Miami since 1998, haven’t seen Jim Morris in person since the mid 90s and could give two shits about cozying up to anybody.
Bring something to the table with your comments or scram, brother. Your rant is getting tired.
just a heads up, we actually ended 2006 with a win against BC to become bowl-eligible
You’re right. Four-game losing streak and then that miracle win on the night Bryan Pata was honored. No. 95 definitely had his hand in that mini-miracle.
Chris – you make a good “pro Morris” case, and point out the hazards of simply assuming that making a leadership change in the CEO position will turn things around. It’s unlikely that the President and Athletic Director will move to make a change. They would have had to have had many pieces in place prior to that. A major rule in business is to never make a change in leadership unless you know exactly where you’re going.
That being said, you make this point early on:
“No, where Miami fans are livid the Monday after is how the Canes lost. Sloppy baseball. Bone-headed mistakes. Mental errors. A lack of heart. To see this program plagued with brain farts in late May, same as they were in February – that’s what drives you nuts. The lack of growth. The inability to correct fundamental mistakes that seemed to be the case all year.”
This has been UM’s problem since 2009. And every year, the off-season is spent on questions of correcting “fundamental” mistake being made. No progress has been made on that front since 2009, and that is primarily what has kept Miami out of Omaha for the past four years.
You want to give Morris one more year, and so too does the UM leadership. I don’t believe that is wise, but I’m not in a position to make those decisions. In my opinion, next year will be just as bad – or worse – as this year. Nothing over the past four years would lead me to come to a different conclusion. Of course, I hope I’m wrong.
Since UM has decided to keep Morris, and since he still believes he can coach, all I can hope for is that he turns things around.
Let’s just say I’m not hopeful, but will be glad to be proven wrong.
All the best to you and the allCanes family, and I look forward to fall practices kicking off soon!
- Jake (somewhere in the Pacific Ocean …)
Jake – It’s not that I “want” to give Jim Morris another year, nor am I screaming that he should be fired. Unlike some, I attempt to be a logical fan, knowing that I don’t have all the answers – and nor does UM based on some past hirings and firings. This whole process is a lot more difficult and complicated than just saying “fire this guy and go hire that guy”. We saw our fans do that in football after Larry Coker was fired — shouting from the rooftops why a Petersen, Patterson or some other flavor of the month should abandon their current post and beeline for Coral Gables and some suppose “dream job” in Miami. In the end, the Canes got Randy Shannon because no one else wanted the job. When Shannon failed, it took a visionary and patient up-and-comer like Al Golden to sign on for this gig. Honestly, had UM not gotten this man, who do we REALLY think was headed to Coral Gables after the 2010 season?
The point of my piece started with an opening line that Morris isn’t going anywhere in 2013 and that the anti-Jim folks shouldn’t pointlessly complain incessantly about his return. It is wat it is, so what can be done to eliminate the mistakes of 2012 so we don’t have to deal with them next year?
Morris isn’t going anywhere, despite what some want, so again, how much times are the Ken Roberts of the world going to demand his firing, call for the UVA coach’s hiring and start conspiracy theories that writers on this blog are cozying up to the staff to remain in the loop? Please.
We all want to see Miami win and unless UM said money was no object and that they knew for sure they could hire one of the best handful of coaches in the game, does it really make sense to push Morris out now? Seems no one that is anti-Jim even entertains the fact that Miami might actually hire a worse, unproven, inexperienced head coach that could come in and set the program back even further.
Chris – you’re absolutely right that unless they had the right coach lined up, firing Morris would be a mistake.
What disappoints me is the inability or unwillingness of senior leadership in the athletic department to recognize the problem and address it. S. Woodward pointed out in his posts the growth in errors by season (from 64 to 96 in 5 seasons). That is but one of many examples that the program needs new direction.
You’re right, Morris isn’t going anywhere in 2013 for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately I fear that 2013 will not be much different from 2012, 2011, 2010 …
Take care and thanks as always. If we ever pull in to San Diego, I hope to meet you!
Go Canes!
Jake
Jake – All good points and yes, Sam drops some awesome stats here and always builds a good argument.
Miami unfortunately is dealing with what happens when you have a successful coach who starts to drop off on some level. Eleven trips to Omaha and two rings … tough to run a guy like that out of town, even if the decline has been on for four seasons. Look how Bobby Bowden sort of went kicking and screaming, begging for one more year and the coming out after the fact, talking poorly about how things shook out … and he was old-old, not in his early sixties.
Miami had that same issue with Larry Coker and it took a full-on debacle of a 2006 season to earn him a pink slip. Furthermore, HAD the Canes beat the Buckeyes and not lost on a bad call, all that happened in 2006 probably STILL wouldn’t have gotten Coker fired as he’d have had two rings instead of one, making it harder to justify running him out of town.
Hopefully there will be some turnover with assistants and some new blood with the program. If not, like you, I also fear that there won’t be too much change in 2013.
Be safe on the open seas and let me know if you ever make it to Diego and we’ll catch up. – C
Woodward nailed it. The first Cane taken in the draft was a Bethune-Cookman transfer. Doesn’t really say much about the current state of the program and player development.
I agree, pretty much across the board.
Stony Brook. Mizzou State. At The Light, at Miami’s house, on the hallowed ground the Wizard of College Baseball made famous. You gotta be f***ing kidding me. It was UVA rolling into the last game of the Orange Bowl and curbstomp Miami. Twice.
“brought eleven teams to Omaha and has coached-up a ton of talent, getting it big league-ready”
Miami errors by season
2012 – 96 (last in ACC in FLD%)
2011 – 92 (last in ACC in FLD%)
2010 – 83 (7th in ACC in FLD%)
2009 – 80 (8th in ACC in FLD%)
2008 – 64 (3rd in ACC in FLD%)
Where is the coaching up of these kids? Where are the fundamentals being lost? Why is it still the same display of f*ckery over the past 5 years on the field/in the batters box/on the mound?
Canes record against teams with the following # RPI:
Teams 1-50 RPI = 14-20
Teams 51-100 RPI = 6-2
Teams 101-200 RPI = 12-1
Beating in ACC teams – BC (10-20), Duke (9-2l), Maryland (10-20), Wake (13-17), UNC (46-16)
Losing their series or getting swept to teams – UiF (45-18 overall), Clemson (16-14 overall), VTech (11-19 overall), FSU (24-6 overall), UVA (18-12 overall)
How the Canes had the Tar Heels number this year, I have no idea.
The tuition card is tired – it’s a hardship we understand. Have other private schools raised their tuition -and- how is the general cost of living in their state compared to that of in Florida (I’m talking mainly about Cali, since there are some good private university baseball schools out there).
I’ll throw out another line that is tired (and I admittedly use, to make it fair to the people who I feel overplay the tuition card) – it’s not just Miami who loses players to the MLB Draft – other private schools have to endure it as well. With the heralded recruiting classes Morris has brought in over the past 5 years, I’m sure not all of the kids were enamored with where they were drafted and chose to attend Miami – wouldn’t that still leave some kids in the class who are pretty damn good in order to help get the high ranking of that class?
WHERE IS THE DEVELOPMENT? WHERE IS THE INSTRUCTION? WHY ARE FUNDAMENTALS SEEMINGLY LOST?
When was the first Cane player taken? 94th overall? He was also a damn transfer from Bethune-Cookman this past year.
My feelings on Morris & JD are well documented over the years on this blog. Time to step down – appreciate what you’ve done (you weren’t my first choice as if I were Fantasy AD making the hire – George Horton was). Hiring Gino was a last ditch effort to bide more time. How much more time is going to be given or what exactly is it going to take for a change to happen.
For a great coach with the accolades to follow, the product on the field sure the hell doesn’t show it – it mocks it.
… S. Woodward always nails it. Bar none my favorite poster over the years. Keep it up, man.
Stony Brook. Mizzou State. At The Light, at Miami’s house, on the hallowed ground the Wizard of College Baseball made famous. You gotta be f***ing kidding me. It was UVA rolling into the last game of the Orange Bowl and curbstomping Miami. Twice.
“brought eleven teams to Omaha and has coached-up a ton of talent, getting it big league-ready”
Miami errors by season
2012 – 96 (last in ACC in FLD%)
2011 – 92 (last in ACC in FLD%)
2010 – 83 (7th in ACC in FLD%)
2009 – 80 (8th in ACC in FLD%)
2008 – 64 (3rd in ACC in FLD%)
Where is the coaching up of these kids? Where are the fundamentals being lost? Why is it still the same display of f*ckery over the past 5 years on the field/in the batters box/on the mound?
Canes record against teams with the following # RPI:
Teams 1-50 RPI = 14-20
Teams 51-100 RPI = 6-2
Teams 101-200 RPI = 12-1
Beating ACC teams – BC (10-20), Duke (9-2l), Maryland (10-20), Wake (13-17), UNC (46-16).
Losing their series or getting swept to teams – UiF (45-18 overall), Clemson (16-14 overall), VTech (11-19 overall), FSU (24-6 overall), UVA (18-12 overall)
How the Canes had the Tar Heels number this year, I have no idea. How the Canes lost to VTech, I have no idea.
The tuition card is tired – it’s a hardship we understand. Have other private schools raised their tuition (?) -and- how is the general cost of living in their state compared to that of in Florida (I’m talking mainly about Cali, since there are some good private university baseball schools out there).
I’ll throw out another line that is tired (and I admittedly use, to make fair to the people who I feel overplay the tuition card) – it’s not just Miami who loses players to the MLB Draft – other private schools have to endure it as well. With the heralded recruiting classes Morris has brought in over the past 5 years, I’m sure not all of the kids were enamored with where they were drafted and chose to attend Miami – wouldn’t that still leave some kids in the class who are pretty damn good in order to help get the high ranking of that class?
Private schools that advanced to Super Regionals this year – Stanford. TCU. Baylor.
Please insert the titles won by Morris & his success at Miami here. I’ll also counter with the success at the previous schools mentioned is nothing to sneeze at either, esp. with Morris walking into a hell of a program already shiny, full tank of gas and key in the ignition b/c of the way its previous owner left it. My point is, private schools can advance & win, even in today’s economy. You don’t think it’s hard to compete in the recruiting world if you’re a team in Cali or Texas? It’s arguably a hell of a lot harder than in the state of Florida.
WHERE IS THE DEVELOPMENT? WHERE IS THE INSTRUCTION? WHY ARE FUNDAMENTALS SEEMINGLY LOST?
When was the first Cane player taken? 94th overall? He was also a damn transfer from Bethune-Cookman this past year.
My feelings on Morris & JD are well documented over the years on this blog. Time to step down – appreciate what you’ve done (you weren’t my first choice as if I were Fantasy AD making the hire – George Horton was). Hiring Gino was a last ditch effort to bide more time. How much more time is going to be given or what exactly is it going to take for a change to happen.
For a great coach with the accolades to follow, the product on the field sure the hell doesn’t show it – it mocks it.
Apologize for the double post – the second post includes when I forgot to mention that Stanford, TCU, Baylor advanced to the Supers, from my first post .. and that Morris didn’t exactly inherit a beaten up Yugo/Gremlin/Pinto of a program. Morris will be the first to tell people about seeing a runner-up trophy being used as a door stop in the Canes offices
That’s what is expected, that’s the type of attitude Fraser (and don’t forget some guy named Skip Bertman that was next to Fraser during the middle years of his career – in which the Canes went to the CWS what, 5 times in his 8 years along side The Wizard?) instilled into the program
Think of the years (before I was even born) that Fraser didn’t even have scholarships to hand to baseball players – Miami didn’t offer schollies to baseball players for years. I realize that this is a different time and era with it being more competitive in the realm of college athletics when it comes to the various sports (recruiting sites helping kids get exposure, more camps nation wide, more tournaments to help exposure, summer ball, winter ball, fall ball, people going insane over recruiting, etc.) – but one thing absolutely has held firm through the years and that is simply – coaching. Instructing. Doing everything & anything for player development
Our coaches back in the day in Little League would take ping pong paddles & tape our hands to them, get us to go out and field out positions, then hit hard ground balls at us to help us develop “softer hands”. Now, a few years ago, a sports company was smart enough to take that idea, make a foam glove that looks like a ping pong paddle, patent it, put a price tag on it and sell it world wide as a “teaching tool” – SKLZ is the company. Our coaches would throw tiny plastic practice golf balls that looked like mini-wiffle balls (a little smaller than the size of a Blow-Pop) at us while we swung at them with a broomstick handle, to enhance hand/eye coordination. Our coaches would stand up on a bucket/chair behind us in the cage & have us be in our batting stance while they tossed a ball up over our shoulder – we had to try & hit it as it came down & hit the middle of the plate. Can’t even tell you how many hours were spent on footwork to improve throwing, or holding a hockey puck for muscle memory of how your fingers should be around a baseball when you have time to throw it
All of these things were taught to us in Little League. Pounded into our heads in Little League & American Legion. High School was highly instructive as well. College is repetition of it at another level – or at least is supposed to be, depending on the school
The success of Morris is his downfall – no doubt. I’ve brought up in the past the question of just how much of the success Morris has had at Miami due to the big 3 assistants being there with him (Lazer, Turtle, Gino)? As each left, the program slipped in recruiting/instruction
There are just too many signs of the team not improving or progressing – hardship due to a financial situation that private universities have to endure isn’t an excuse for shoddy & error filled play … year after year. I’ve seen dirt poor kids playing in the streets of the Greater Antilles with better fundamentals – and they had paper milk cartons for gloves, literally. After some instruction & development, the kids turned into nice ball players
I’m just wondering how many more years will be allowed with Morris. Where is the final cut off for all Canes baseball fans – not just some of them who would like to see a change take place
Also, the point brought up about ACC baseball & how tough it is for Miami being in the ACC – how many ACC teams made the Regionals this year (or were host) & how many survived to get to Omaha? Impressive number to make the Regionals, not so impressive that made it beyond. When was the last time an ACC team even won the CWS? Back in 1955 with Wake Forest?
Minnesota has won 2 College World Series titles since Wake won in 1955. The Golden f*cking Gophers have won 2. No ACC team has won since 1955. That includes even when FSU joined in ’91, GTech in ’78
An SEC team will most likely win it all again this year. That conference has been the boss of college baseball since 1990
Minnesota has actually won 3 .. that’s even worse.