Monday March 26, 2007

1,000 Wins; Offense; AARC; Booker Ends

1,000 Wins
Sunday’s win over Maryland gave Jack Leggett his 1,000 win as a head coach. Now in his 28th year, Leggett can start looking at breaking into the top 20 in All-Time wins, maybe in the next three seasons. Going into the year Central Florida’s Jay Bergman was 20th on the list with 1094 wins.

Currently 14th on the list is Clemson legend Bill Wilhelm. When Leggett wins another 100 or so games Clemson will probably be the only school with two coaches in the top 20 in all-time wins. A lot of factors might change though including a school hiring a coach that is already on the list. But I think it would be impressive to be the only school with two of the top 20 all-time coaches in terms of wins in college baseball.

Leggett is now 161 wins behind Wilhelm who was fifth in all-time wins at the time of his retirement. The amazing part of Wilhelm’s success is that many of those years they played so few games. In his first year, 1958, the Tigers played only a total of 30 games. In 1960 Clemson played only 22 games. From 1960-1964 the Tigers averaged less than 25 games per season. It was 1968 before Clemson ever played 40 games in a season. In 1976 they played more than 50 games for the first time in school history. Also consider the fact that Wilhelm never had a losing season in his 36 years at Clemson.

Leggett has now won 623 games at Clemson and has averaged over 46 wins per season in Tigertown. In about ten years Leggett will be 67 and hopefully on the verge of breaking Wilhelm’s record for wins at Clemson. Leggett has 75 wins at Vermont and 302 at Western Carolina. Wilhelm is either 76 or 77 now and he looks strong enough to see another 36 years of Clemson baseball.

Leggett’s Dad
On the subject of baseball, I am sure many have heard but Leggett is not scheduled to be with the team Tuesday when the Tigers host Gardner Webb. He left College Park, MD after the game to be with his father who is ill.

I won’t forget how Clemson men’s soccer coach, Trevor Adair, had to endure trips to Belfast, Northern Ireland to see his ailing father as his team was fighting on its way to the Final Four.

Prayers go out to Leggett and his family and hope he brings back good news from Vermont.

Fan's Dream Week
Tuesday Clemson will play a game later in the year than basketball game in school history. The Tigers played on March 25, 1999 in the finals of the NIT against California.

I would say that we have a rare occasion this week in Clemson athletics where the football team is in spring practice while the baseball and basketball teams are competing. It happened the first week of spring practice this season but it usually depended on how late the football team starts spring practice.

At any rate, I look forward to the news of a positive week on the practice fields in football and a couple of exciting wins for the baseball and basketball teams. Clemson baseball plays Gardner Webb on Tuesday and Western Carolina on Wednesday before hosting Miami for a three game set this weekend. Obviously basketball plays Tuesday and is hoping to play in the NIT title game on Thursday. It’s weeks like this that are a sports information directors nightmare but a fan’s dream.

Offense
I saw on Tigernet this week where some fans are concerned about the baseball team and received a few e-mails wanting to know how this team could suffer three straight losses to the likes of Western Carolina and Maryland.

I would say the road games have not been good to the Tigers so far but my main concern is the offense. Clemson came into last week 11th in the ACC in batting average, runs, hits and doubles and hit worse last week. The 1-3 road trip saw Clemson hit just .220 and had an on-base percentage of less than .300.

I am not in panic mode but it would not take me too long to get there if you told me the offense would not snap out of its current slump. This weekend’s series is big but Miami is just 3-6 in the league. The Canes were swept by North Carolina then took two of three from Maryland before dropping two of three to Virginia this past weekend.

AARC
When President Barker announced his task force to study to AARC and the admission policies he set a date of March 30th as their deadline. I would say thousands of Clemson fans will be interested in this outcome. I have purposely refrained to digging too much with the members of the task force but will talk to a couple after the findings are announced. One of my main concerns is how much this group will be censored and I think it will be pretty obvious when the findings are announced. I do know that there was a lot of concern about Terry Don Phillip’s letter on the subject and how long the administration had it to review. I wonder how long Sykes Hall will have these findings and how much editing will take place?

Booker Ends
Book end defensive ends have made their way on the Clemson campus for years. Now the basketball team will have Booker ends. Trevor Booker’s little brother, Devin, committed to the Tigers over the weekend. I have never seen him play but have heard good things about this power forward.

It’s nice to see the legacy and family grow at Clemson in terms of basketball. This fall Jerai Grant, the son of former Tiger Harvey Grant, will join the basketball team.

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