How does South Carolina hire one coach.....

[Dollabillz]

and just breeze right into national prominence, twice making the title series and now winning it? This is ********. We had all the pieces in place, but we're nobody now. How we never won the Title is an effing mystery to me. It makes me sick to my stomach watching South f**king Carolina celebrate a baseball national title. They have nothing we don't have, yet it seems like we can't do a damn thing in baseball anymore.

 

[ScoobaDawg]

They have nothing we don't have?
They have had a competent coach who is a great recruiter and who has won consistently his whole career.
We just finished year 2 of the Cohen rebuilding project after Polk destroyed the program.

SC just built a brand new state of the art BEAUTIFUL Stadium...while we havent touched The Dude except for two scoreboards and a new field over the past 12 years.

Tanner is a a hell of a coach and I have no problem with them winning... they are celebrating their first Major Sport Nationa Championship...
I long for the day when we can do the same in one of the big 3.

 

[Dollabillz]

yet we haven't done **** in it. I guess I'm having trouble facing the fact that we are not a baseball school any more. We were for about 2 weeks in 2007.

What I meant was, the overall potential for our program is as great as South Carolina's. We could have built a better stadium than SC by now and we could have hired a better coach.

 

[Shmuley]

when it dawns on the hopelessly naive that money talks and bullsh!+ walks. We're getting *** raped by the rest of the conference in facilities, people.

 

[8dog]

facilities.

Their success is directly tied to Ray Tanner. Its about the coach in college baseball, period. Facilities in baseball mean nothing.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

I'm sorry, what was the question again?

 

[patdog]

I remember playing them in a couple of regionals back in the 80s and I think maybe in the CWS too. But as for hiring a coach, they did a damn good job of it. Tanner had been pretty successful at NC State before he went to USC. It's not like they just made a lucky hire.

 

[Shmuley]

nm

 

[Dollabillz]

but common sense tells you that recruiting would be easierwith a big shiny stadium. But then again how do you explain all the California schools that play in dumps. I think they have just a shitload of talent out there, more than enough to go around. I think facilities comes after winning myself, so you're right. If you have the big stadium, at some point you won big without it.

 

[8dog]

What came first?:

1. Skipe Bertman winning 5 national titles in a dump or LSU getting a beautiful new stadium?
2. Ray Tanner making 4 CWS appearances in the dump known as Sarge Fry or SC getting a new stadium?
3. Mike Bianco turning ole miss into a national contender or ole miss expanding their facility into a great park?
4. Mike Fox turning UNC into a national power or UNC expanding their facility into a great park?

Then look at Notre Dame before and after Maneiri. Look at what got done at Oregon State. Look at Virginia.

And most of all, look at all the national championship signs at Dudy Noble.

Stadiums mean nothing in baseball except to the fans.

 

[downwarddawg]

I laughed

 

[Coach34]

thats why we dont have a title, and thats why the program crashed.

Let's be honest here-Polk is not exactly impressive when you meet him. I met him when he spoke to me and a couple of other prospects during summer ball after my Sophomore year, and I was less than impressed. I couldnt believe this little squirrelly guy was the great Ron Polk. He did alot for baseball and he made Startkville attractive to recruits, but when you can't win a title with Palmiero, Clark, Thigpen, Brantley, and Van Cleve, plus the rest- you arent ever going to win one.

We were still decent in the 90's. but the SEC caught up and started passing us. The rest of the conference decided to put money into baseball and that was the end of Polk being a top SEC coach. Polk went to Georgia and won with somebody else's players plus a few he brought in- so we decide to bring him back. Huge mistake of course.

Polk's 2nd tenure was ridiculous. Polk didnt work as hard at recruiting and it killed the program (had a coaching friend that had a top recruit- Polk visited and couldnt even get the kid's name right- kept calling him the wrong name). And that is why we are where we are now.

SEC baseball is the same as SEC football- its the best in college sports. Football has won 4 straight titles- and SEC baseball has won or played for the title 4 of the last 6 years. The fact that we are bringing top recruits in right now when we are very down is very encouraging to me and why I'm willing to give Cohen 2 more seasons. The rebuild has been slowed by injuries, and hopefully we avoid some of those this upcoming season.

Got to keep the faith

 

[DirtyLopez]

Remember when lsu was winning all of those National Titles? Their players were exiting their basket weaving and baseball 101 classes and going back to the dorms and jabbing needles in their asses (not heroin). In the meantime, most of our players were graduating with engineering degrees or something similar. The early days of Polk were good because we were one of the few programs that put alot of effort into it. We could never win the whole thing though because we were usually one dimensional. We usually couldn't hit a junk pitcher and we couldn't bunt off of a tee to save the free world. As far as recruiting, remember Gary Rath? Polk wanted him to go to juco for a season and then sign with us. Thank god that kessinger (i think)or whoever was coaching the hotties and totties at the timeforced polks hand and we had to sign him out of high school or lose him to them. We all know the millions of other stories, so I won't rehash them. Bottom line is, we had some damn good teams that we should have done a little more with for whatever reasons.

 

[patdog]

He was just lucky enough to come along at a time when nobody else gave a **** about baseball and MSU fans were ready to go apeshit crazy over a winning program in just about anything. He was a good coach, but he was definitely in the right place at the right time. And once other schools started caring about baseball, he very quickly became an average coach. Then when he quit recruiting, he became a terrible coach.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

Looked like a genius, but once challenged fell hard.

 

[slickdawg]

The Ron Polk Award.

That mother17er did more damage to our program upon his return than any good he did in his entire career.

You want proof of his coaching skills?

Clark, Palmerio, Thigpen, Brantley - no championship

1989, #2 in the country, couldn't even win a regional at HOME to advance

I fully supported Polk through his first term up to his retirement. He got to the 1997 CWS with kids that Pat McMahon recruited. McMahon took the same kids the next year.
After his antics when McMahon left, "my good friend LT called me and of course I took the job", and because his boy Raffo did not get hired as the head coach, he's on my **** list.

 

[Todd4State]

Ray Tanner has been coaching there for awhile- since 1997. It's not like he took over this year and won the thing.

Similarly, he took over for a guy named June Raines, who was a very successful coach in his own right, but he was fired after his first losing season in 1996. The team Tanner took over was 25-28 the year before.

Over time, Tanner built them up, and in addition to that, he got them their new stadium.

 

[Todd4State]

we didn't renovate Dudy-Noble until 1987, which was of course after Clark and Palmeiro.

I don't think facilities by themselves help win championships or anything either, but having lots of fans in the seats does help recruiting at least a little bit.

It's not an be all, end all, I'm going to MSU because of the Palmeiro Center, but it sure doesn't hurt. Players want to win, first and foremost, and I think they want playing time, so that scouts will see them so that they can go to the Big Leagues.

I for one would like to add the championship signs back to the outfield. Even though there are no National Champion signs.

To be honest, we do have some good things about our baseball program that could help us land very good players. Tradition, yes, the facilities, and the fans. But that's all for naught if you don't recruit the very best players. That to me was our problem under Polk. He expected these high school players to flock to Starkville and come to us, and it just does not work that way. You have to go out and let these players know that we want them, because they are going to assume that they are not wanted if we don't go after them. They'll just as soon go to Ole Miss even if they grew up a State fan if that's going to get them playing time. Ask Logan Power.

 

[KurtRambis4]

A guy that is a top notch recruiter is what it takes. Players win the games. Not managers. Without top notch talent, you're going to have a hard time winning the title. Cohen is currently improving this.