August 9, 2007

Winning reflections
UC Irvine baseball coach Dave Serrano talks about the Anteaters’ remarkable run in the College World Series.
BY TIM BURT IRVINE WORLD NEWS

It’s been more than a couple months since UC Irvine’s unheralded baseball team became the top story of college baseball, overcoming obstacles to advance to the championship round of the College World Series.
Since then, life has been pretty hectic for head coach Dave Serrano, who cherishes the memories of a 47-17-1 season. UCI, which lost to Oregon State in the championship series, wound up as the fourth-ranked team in the country after its first trip to Omaha.

Serrano, who has a 114-66-1 record in three seasons at UCI, is already looking ahead to next season.
Earlier this summer, he reflected on UCI’s run to Omaha.

How are things going for you this summer?

I guess if my summer has to be this hectic, I guess it means that things are going good and I’ll take it every day of the week. It’s been rewarding, I’m starting to slowly look back and I’m watching a little bit of the videos of the games and it relives some great memories, things I didn’t get to see being in the dugout, like some of the reactions of the people in the stands and the reactions on our players’ faces when things were going well or things were getting tough.

It brings back a lot of special memories of a special group of young men that made a lot of dreams come true for this campus community and this whole community.

What made this team so special?

The kids; their love for each other and they’re togetherness and how they fought for one another. They were in it for the right things. I’m sure that not every member of the team was happy about their playing time, but they accepted their role and they put the team goals and the team first. I said this to the team when it was all said and done. We might have teams that end up with more wins, we might have a team that wins the national championship and that wins the Big West championship eventually. But it will be a long time before we ever are able to assemble so many young men that were all committed to the same thing.

I hope we can do it next year. That’s going to be our task at hand. And that’s what’s so great about this job is that we get another big ball of clay next year and we get to try and mold that ball of clay into hopefully another exciting year of baseball and mold a bunch of young men into making them better people and stronger people in the bigger game of life.

What was it like in Omaha?

I’ve been fortunate enough to be there five other times (with Cal State Fullerton), never as a head coach. Probably the most rewarding thing for me was being able to take a team of coaches, players and parents and administrators that had never been there before. To see how the parents were able to gather and have a great time together and get to know each other better than they all knew each other and for the players and coaching staff to experience that at the end of the year was very rewarding and much deserved for this team.

What was it like after the loss to Oregon State in the World Series?

We were exhausted, we really were. We probably didn’t play as great of baseball in the World Series as we did during the season, the regionals and the super regional. We had a lot of young men who were tired, we were running on emotion. We weren’t just playing games, we were playing nail-biters to the end and extra-inning games that took up a lot of energy and we played in parts of the country that it was very hot and humid and we were in a hotel for 20 out of 21 days. All good stuff when you’re living it, but when it was over, I saw a team that was exhausted.

The tears at the end that flowed from many (players’) eyes wasn’t the fact that we lost the game; it was the fact that this team would never be assembled ever again, and that’s always a sad thing to see at the end of the year.

What about the personality of the team?

Gregg Wallis, our director of baseball operations, mentioned to me “It’s amazing how you let these guys just be themselves.” I said I always want our players to be themselves, just like we’re going to be ourselves. But this team earned the right to have fun and do the things they were able to do because I knew that fun was over, they were able to re-focus on what the task was out in front of us.

I truly believe that you’ve got to have that kind of personality. We have restrictions here and we have disciplinary issues that we deal with, but you need to have fun playing the game. I spend more time with our players than I do with my own wife and my own three boys at home, so I better be enjoying myself too if I’m spending more time with my team than my own family.

Was your family with you for the post-season?

My wife was on every trip with us in Texas, Wichita and Omaha and my boys were in Texas with us and they went to Omaha with us. Kyle (12), was the batboy so he was in the dugout and the other two, Zachary (10) and Parker (3) were in the stands with Tracy (his wife).

Kyle has been there (to Omaha) five times and he’s 12 years old. I’ve got to get out of their heads that this is an annual Serrano vacation going to Omaha, because it’s not something that happens all the time. We hope it is.

What’s the impact with all the media attention you got?

UC Irvine has a little different ring tone to it when we are making recruiting calls and are out at games. It’s amazing how many people watched the College World Series and it wasn’t just ESPN, we were on local television, you guys did a wonderful job in the local newspapers of spreading the news about our success and we were on a lot of local radio outlets, talking about Irvine, which became the darlings of the nation.

To me, it has really opened up the campus eyes that we aren’t just an academic institution, we have athletics too. I think it’s going to create maybe a little more excitement around this athletic department, which is vital to everyone’s success.

And if we and men’s volleyball (which won the national title) had any impact on that, that’s great.

What about the future?

That’s always our goal (reaching the World Series) and now that we’ve proven we can do it, and now it’s not just a fairy tale.

When our guys come back in September, when they start lifting weights and doing conditioning drills, and as we go into practice, they will have Omaha in their minds like never before. It was always a dream, now it’s a reality.

The 2007 Anteaters have paved the road to get to Omaha, now it’s just a matter of what teams want to make that drive to get there.

The future is bright.

On paper, not taking anything away from last year’s team, we thought the 2008 team had a chance to be a little bit better because our young guys that were impact guys will be a little bit older. We’re going to miss the older guys that have moved on, but we think we’re going to strong next year and we think the cupboards are pretty full and we’re going to be good for a few years.

And with the way we’re getting commitments from kids, we anticipate being good for a while. Now, again talent doesn’t always win. It’s about the makeup and the character that is going to make the difference on how far we go, each and every year.

What about your future?

I’m thrilled to death to be the leader of this program. My family is tremendously happy living in the community (University Hills). I love coming to work here every day. It just seems like things get better and better every day in this program.

My ego doesn’t tell me that I have to go to a bigger program, because I want to make this the biggest program that I can make it.

When you have a family, it’s a great community to live in, a great school district and it’s just a great place to be when you have so many things around you here in south Orange County. There is nothing bad I can say about this place.

Has the success all sunk in?

I won’t realize what we accomplished until next year starts and we realize the expectations. The bar has really been raised, but probably the only expectations of next year is going to be that we’re going to have a great team when it comes to team and we’re going to expect you to do what you can do and give your best effort and we’re going to have the best character of anyone in the country.

I wouldn’t want to be in a program that there aren’t expectations of being successful and having a chance to go to Omaha and play for a national championship. Otherwise, with as much time as we put into this job, there is no reason to be in this job if you don’t have those expectations.