In Gary Adams’ 29 years as head coach of the UCLA baseball
team, he has enjoyed exceptional success in luring star recruits to
the UCLA program. Thirty-seven future major-leaguers have eschewed
other suitors for the beauty of Westwood, the prestige of a UCLA
degree and the chance to compete at what Sports Illustrated once
called “America’s No. 1 athletic school.”
However, that 37 could be a much larger number if UCLA had
something most other schools offer: an on-campus baseball
field.
Cozy Jackie Robinson Stadium sits about two miles from campus,
across Sepulveda Boulevard just past the 405 Freeway.
The field itself is pleasant, as are most of the facilities of
other top college venues.
Its location, though, has harmed the program in two major ways:
spectator support and recruiting.
While baseball is the number three sporting attraction behind
football and basketball on many campuses, Jackie Robinson Stadium
rarely draws more than a few hundred fans, few of them
students.
“We miss out on a lot of students walking home from class,
seeing the game, and stopping,” pitching coach Gary Adcock
said. “A lot of students don’t even know where the
baseball field is. I remember being a new student here and not
knowing.”
The Constitution Avenue address might as well be downtown to
most students.
Jackie Robinson lies sequestered from the pulse of campus and
the minds of the student body. While sports like tennis, water polo
and soccer take advantage of walking traffic from the masses of
dorm residents, baseball’s patrons must travel well off the
beaten path to a place normally devoted to Getty Museum parking
overflows.
Baseball thus loses much of its visibility in a spring-program
fight for campus support. The past few years have been especially
trying as UCLA has struggled on the field, often playing with
little or no hope for the postseason.
As a result, many of the nation’s top players walk largely
unrecognized on their own campus.
Players are further inconvenienced by the trek they make nearly
every day to practices and games.
These factors add up to a tougher sell to recruits. Unlike other
sports where UCLA is the preeminent power, baseball must contend
with several distinguished programs in Southern California alone,
including USC, Cal State Fullerton, San Diego State and Long Beach
State.
And unlike UCLA, all the above-mentioned schools have on-campus
fields.
Recruits often show up on campus only to find out that the field
is still miles away. Recruits never explicitly point to this fact
as a reason not to sign with UCLA, but it certainly makes the
program less desirable.
“I think some recruits factor it in,” Adcock said.
“I’ve recruited at Purdue and UC Riverside, and every
school has its pluses and minuses. But, it really isn’t
something that holds you back.”
“It’s just something we have to live with,”
Adams said. “We have to battle a little harder. We’ve
become good at accentuating the positives, but all things being
equal, not many Division I schools have to make these kind of
arguments.”
Adams’ approach has diminished the impact of the
off-campus field, as top prospects continually overlook the
distance to join a program renowned for its production of
major-leaguers. Additionally, the lure of playing for Adams is one
of UCLA’s greatest assets.
“I think he’s a great recruiter because he’s
so personable,” junior outfielder Matt Sharp said.
“When you meet him, you know you’re meeting a legend.
To play under that caliber of a coach is great.”
With Adams retiring after this upcoming year, it will be
interesting to see what becomes of a program that featured the
coach as one of its main attractions. When he leaves, Jackie
Robinson Stadium may seem a bit further for star recruits.
Bemoaning the stadium issue is really an act of futility. UCLA
has little free space, and baseball stands little chance of
acquiring some of that real estate. As talks of an on-campus
football stadium repeatedly make headlines, baseball seems resigned
to its remote fate.
“I fought very hard for an on-campus stadium when I first
started out, but it didn’t work out,” Adams said.
“There used to be room for it, but over the years the
locations we were looking at have been taken. They have been used
for really good reasons like the hospital. You can’t argue
with that.”
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Junior pitcher Chris Cordeiro has foregone his senior season of
eligibility by signing a contract with the Texas Rangers. The
Rangers took him in the 29th round of Major League Baseball’s
June amateur draft. In 2003, Cordeiro had a 4.62 ERA with four
saves in a team-high 21 appearances.
Sophomore Wes Whisler tallied his fifth All-America honor in two
years, receiving an honorable mention award from
CollegeBaseballInsider.com. He was also named to the All
Pac-10’s first team. This season Whisler hit .310 with nine
home runs and 39 RBI. He also led the team in innings pitched with
82.2.
Brett McMillan received freshman All-American honors from
Collegiate Baseball. He was also named as an honorable mention to
the All-Pac-10 team. McMillan hit .330 with eight home runs, 35
RBI, and 42 runs scored.