CANHAM AND BLOOMQUIST - CONTROVERSIAL HIRES?

When Arizona State dismissed Head Coach Tracy Smith and hired Willie Bloomquist to replace him, there was some dissent in the Sun Devil baseball community. Bloomquist is a native of the Olympic peninsula in Washington, was a star player at ASU and played years in the major leagues. He’s never coached. ASU’s hiring of Bloomquist somewhat parallels OSU’s hiring of Mitch Canham – former decorated player at OSU, years playing professionally and no college coaching experience. Canham did have three years of managing in the Seattle Mariner organization at Clinton, Modesto and Arkansas. Bloomquist has been working in an Administrative capacity with the Arizona Diamondbacks.


On one side of the discussion, Canham and Bloomquist are highly thought of in the professional ranks and both have the right stuff to lead a college program. Both have enjoyed successful careers with notable achievements. Supporters point out the overall profile of the coach will outweigh the lack of any college coaching background.


The opposing side will point out the college job is much different than the pro job and college experience is necessary in managing a little different game with younger players, and necessary in recruiting and promoting the program with boosters and fans. College coaches are responsible and accountable for everything within the parameters of the program – pro coaches are responsible in some measure for player development, preparing top prospects to advance in classification, and winning games.


An argument made by the “college experienced” side is that pro coaches will fill out their staff with former pro players or pro coaching assistants. This held true here at OSU. When Coach Canham hired Rich Dorman, Darwin Barney and has Joey Wong assisting. All have professional backgrounds. Only Gippy is an experienced college coach. The OSU staff were all outstanding players, know baseball inside and out and are the kind of Men you want involved in your program.


Coaches have to be teachers. That is the crux of the job, effectively teaching young men how to play good baseball, so the area of instructional skill and the ability to teach is mandatory. Will the staff at ASU teach? Can the staff at OSU teach? Player development and a winning program requires it.


Mike Rooney wrote an article on the hiring of Willie Bloomquist. Here are some pertinent observations he made.


"While I’m clearly all in on Willie Bloomquist the person, it would be disingenuous to ignore another elephant in the room. Under the best of conditions, running a major college baseball program is extremely difficult. It is erroneous to say that it is a “difficult job” because it is not a job. It is a lifestyle. That may sound cliché but 9-to-5 won’t get it done in this arena.

Every college baseball program is either gaining momentum or losing momentum. This game is hyper-competitive, and it waits for no one.

Is it fair to expect Bloomquist to be able to compete with the titans of this profession right now? Tim Corbin, Dave Van Horn, Kevin O’Sullivan, Tim Tadlock, Jim Schlossnagle, Brian O’Connor and Dan McDonnell are a few names of future Hall of Famers competing for the same victories. Within the Pac-12, three of Bloomquist’s peers (David Esquer, Jay Johnson, John Savage) have taken multiple teams to the College World Series. He has yet to take a team to Opening Day.

And history has not been kind to these out of the box hires with no coaching apprenticeship. The late great Tony Gwynn went to just three regionals in 12 seasons at his alma mater San Diego State… and two of those regional appearances came in his final two seasons. Darin Erstad’s record in NCAA tournament play over eight seasons at Nebraska was 2-8. Troy Percival (UC Riverside), Vance Law (BYU), Ed Sprague (Pacific), and Chad Kreuter (USC) are other big leaguers who were hired despite having limited to no coaching chops. These are all highly respected and reputable baseball men. Yet their coaching tenures failed to move the needle for their respective programs.


Leading a college baseball program requires immense talent and skill. The college game is quite different from the professional game. It’s no wonder those men struggled when they entered the profession with none of prerequisite skills. Scheduling and RPI ramifications, scholarship management, the recruitment of freshmen and sophomores in high school who haven’t played varsity baseball yet, staff development… these are just a few areas of expertise that one does not acquire while pursuing a career as a major league baseball player. Only a coaching resumé can give you these. “