Randy Mazey caps last home series with a win – The Gold and Blue Nation Podcast
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A chapter of Randy Mazey’s coaching career has come to a close. The 12th-year head coach of the WVU baseball team has coached his final home game.
Sunday’s 12-5 win over Kansas State counted as Mazey’s 367th victory overall with the Mountaineers and his 144th at his team’s current home stadium of Kendrick Family Ballpark.
Shortly after wiping a few tears from his eyes and cheeks that appeared during the signing of Country Roads, Mazey reminded his team there is still more work to be done after the emotional series-clinching victory. There remains one final regular-season series on the road at TCU, where he coached for six years, followed by at least two games at the Big 12 Championship tournament in Arlington, Texas, and then at least two more in the NCAA Tournament.
With at least seven games still to coach in his final season at the helm, the skipper doesn’t want to spend too much time reflecting. He will leave that for after the final out in his coaching career is recorded, whenever that may be. His players, though, have had plenty of time to think of what it means to be part of Mazey’s last hoorah.
“He’s the man. I say it every single time I get asked the question, he’s like a second father to me. He was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reason I came here,” All-American shortstop JJ Wetherholt said last week. “He reminded me of my dad, just a good guy. He knows how to create well-mannered men, and that’s the biggest thing. He’s more than just a baseball coach. He’s a life coach.”
Wetherholt has spent three years with Mazey. He has grown extremely close to the Mazey family, especially future Mountaineer and Randy’s son, Weston.
Weston has spent countless hours in and around the WVU baseball facility. He has almost literally grown up in a West Virginia uniform.
Logan Sauve wasn’t born into a Mountaineer family, but he was born into one with a direct connection to the Mazeys. His father, Jeff, played under Randy at Clemson from 1992-93. Randy had just started his coaching career two years prior. Fast forward some 30 years, and Logan is in his second season as a player under Randy.
“My dad playing for him was really cool,” Logan said Saturday. “Being the only father-son combination under coach Mazey is really cool.”
As one Sauve ballplayer was among the first to be tutored by Randy, the other will be among the last.
“It means the world to play for somebody like coach Mazey, who’s been so successful in this program and everywhere he’s been,” Logan added. “He’s built something really special here.”
Players like Wetherholt and Sauve have known Mazey personally for multiple years now. And then there are others on this year’s Mountaineer baseball roster who are only just starting to get to know him.
Senior starter Derek Clark came to West Virginia for his first and only season at the Division I level. After missing the first few weeks of the season due to injury, he has turned into the ace of Mazey’s pitching staff. Not only can Clark deal on the mound, but he knows how to pick up his head coach off the field.
At the start of what is expected to be the final Monday at Mundy’s gathering of the season this week, Clark was quick to take the microphone and inject some humor into the crowded room when the man sitting to his left got misty-eyed.
“Words can’t really describe what this place means to me,” Clark told reporters after his 10-strikeout performance Saturday. “I love this place. I’m a Mountaineer until I die.”
Freshman left-hander Joseph Fredericks admits he didn’t speak much, if at all, to Mazey during his recruitment process. Having now been on campus since last summer, the stout southpaw understands the impact his 12th-year head coach has had on the program he calls home.
“It’s super rare for a player to come in and be able to be coached by someone who’s been around the game for so long,” Fredericks said Sunday. “It was just awesome. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Playing calm and confident is one of the biggest on-field lessons Mazey teaches, especially to young or first-year players, according to Fredericks.
“[Mazey has] come up to me after every outing, whether it’s good or bad, and just instilled confidence in me,” said junior southpaw Tyler Switalski on Sunday. “He told me he still has full confidence in me and that just has allowed me to stay in the groove and keep getting better and better until I can help this team win baseball games.”
After the final out was recorded and John Denver’s famous song had been sung, all four members of the Mazey family embraced near home plate Sunday afternoon. A few moments later, every player in a WVU uniform lined up along the first-base foul line to congratulate and thank Mazey.
One by one, players wrapped their arms around their head coach. Meanwhile, the fans chanted their appreciation from the stands.
“It was such an honor to play for coach Mazey for his last season,” Fredericks added. “I really wouldn’t want to play for anybody else in the country. He has so much wisdom about the game, he’s been around it for so long.”
