With Steve Lavin and Bob Toledo gone, many Bruin
“fans” want Dan Guerrero to get rid of another UCLA
coach ““ Gary Adams.
But to fire Adams would be wrong. You can’t fire a guy who
has been the head baseball coach at UCLA since 1975. You
can’t fire a guy who has 1,129 career wins, is 19th on the
all-time coaching win list in his sport and 10th among active
coaches.
That would be like firing such respectable names as college
basketball’s Jim Boeheim (10th active, 19th overall), the
NFL’s Mike Ditka (19th overall), the NFL’s Jeff Fisher
(10th active), the NBA’s Rick Adelman (9th active, 18th
overall), the MLB’s Earl Weaver (20th overall), or college
football’s Mack Brown (10th active). None of the active
coaches on that list are on the hot seat, and for good reason.
So what if the man has had a rough last couple of seasons? With
a career record of 1,129-856-12, doesn’t he deserve another
chance? It was just three years ago that the Bruins won the Pac-10,
one of the toughest conferences in college baseball.
It’s impossible not to be a good coach in a conference
like the Pac-10 and find yourself 273 games above .500.
It would be one thing to demand the firing of a head coach when
the program is getting massive support from thousands of fans, as
happens in major college sports such as football and men’s
basketball. UCLA baseball has averaged only 511 fans at its home
games this season.
But don’t blame the empty seats on the team’s
record. USC, a traditional baseball powerhouse, has averaged only
631 fans per game.
Obviously, most UCLA sports fans don’t go to the
university’s baseball games. But many of them do watch major
league baseball games.
I saw a plethora of red Angels hats and shirts on campus last
October. (Don’t go away Angels fans! They got off to a worse
start last season. They’ll be back.).
And it’s in the pros where Adams seriously competes with
the best of them. Compare the number of ex-UCLA players currently
in the major leagues (11) with the four best teams in college
baseball history: all of them have won at least four College World
Series championships and have made it to the championship game at
least once in the past four years.
Arizona State 7, Louisiana State 7, Miami 11, Texas 5 and USC
14.
Yes, Adams develops pros like the best teams in the country.
But I hear the arguments now. With all the talent he’s
had, shouldn’t he have won more championships? Not
necessarily. Adams developed these pros. Eric Karros and Dave
Roberts were both walk-ons at UCLA. And while Troy Glaus may be the
only Bruin All-Star in the majors right now, two first-round draft
picks are on their way up. Chase Utley, the Phillies’ first
round pick in 2000, got his first career hit ““ a grand slam
““ over the weekend. Josh Karp was the sixth pick overall for
the Expos in 2001.
Speaking of Karp, he’s perfect evidence of why Adams is a
great college coach. If most teams were given a top-10 pick caliber
pitcher, they’d use him as much as possible. Not Gary Adams.
Adams cared about Karp’s future, and kept him on a strict
pitch count. Adams let Karp “overwork” only once.
“I didn’t like myself (afterward),” Adams said
after the game. “I was not really proud of my decision.
I’ll never do that again. We’ve always been famous for
taking care of our pitchers’ arms. We want to win, but
that’s what our bullpen’s for.”
That’s Gary Adams in a nutshell. He wants to win, but his
players’ well-being and future come first. Gary Adams wins
and cares. The perfect combination.
The gymnastics team’s NCAA Championship is a reminder that
you can be an athlete and still not play a sport. E-mail the Stat
Geek at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.