Terps Hire Erik Bakich as Baseball Head Coach

by Ben Broman on Jun 28, 2009 10:31 AM EDT in Other Maryland Athletics

I was in the tank for Turtle Thomas just because he's named, uh, Turtle, and our mascot is a turtle. But this is good too.

Maryland is expected to announce Vanderbilt assistant coach Erik Bakich as its new head coach, sources close to the situation said early Saturday afternoon.

Bakich’s announcement as the new coach for the Terrapins could come as early as Monday. Sources close to the situation revealed on Saturday that Bakich and Maryland officials were close to nailing down final details of a contract. The source also said the deal essentially was done. It now appears to be a done deal.

Okay, so now that Bakich is hired, is he a good hire?

As I'm sure you know, I'm not a very informed analyst on college baseball. I'll leave that to LSU and Texas fans. But it seems like he's a pretty good coach and, more importantly, recruiter. Vandy pretty consistently has among the best recruiting classes in the nation.

Last year, Vanderbilt had the #2 recruiting class on the nation. Of course, it's in the SEC, so a good recruiting class is a bit of a guarantee, but they're consistently in the top 5. What does some guy who know about baseball (the same article from above) have to say about it?

Bakich’s addition to the Maryland program is a good one. He spent seven seasons at Vanderbilt, where he helped coach Tim Corbin orchestrate highly ranked recruiting classes on a consistent basis. Bakich also is known as a very hard-nosed coach that expects maximum effort from his players.

Hard-nosed coach who expects maximum effort? Perfect, I'll take him. The first step for a rebuilding school should be getting a disciplinarian coach who can be tough on his player without alienating them. At least, that's my logic to it. The fact that he's a great recruiter is just icing on the cake. Maryland has the weather and facilities against them, but BC made it into the NCAAs, and Maryland's in the ACC - solid recruiting classes are possible.

Anyone more knowledgeable about college baseball have anything to say on him?

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"I was in the tank for Turtle Thomas just because he's named, uh, Turtle, and our mascot is a turtle."

Heh, now that’s hard-hitting sports analysis! I don’t follow college baseball at all, but it’d be nice to make it into the College World Series, uh you know, at some point in school history.

I think Maryland is tied with North Carolina for having the best all-around all-time athletics program. We’ve won national championships in pretty much every sport conceivable or at least had a period where we were excellent in a particular sport — lacrosse, basketball, football, soccer, w bball, w lax, field hockey, wrestling, boxing… But the baseball program has definitely been a bit of an embarrassment.

by JC1 on Jun 29, 2009 5:41 AM EDT reply actions

Yeah, it really has

We’ve never really thrown too much support behind baseball. Only recently did they get full scholarships. Combine that with the weather and facilities, and we’re not a very attractive package. That said, if Boston College, whose weather makes us look like Miami, and their facilities are worse than ours, too, can compete, I’m pretty sure we can, too. It’s a good start.

by Ben Broman on Jun 29, 2009 10:21 AM EDT up reply actions