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McNickle Reaching Out To Players

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By BART O'CONNELL

Tribune correspondent

Published: June 26, 2008

ST. LEO - Russ McNickle spent Wednesday afternoon in and out of Saint Leo's athletic offices, getting to know as many people as he can and returning a long string of messages that had been piling up on his cell phone.

The newest Lions baseball coach could be consumed with the daunting task of selling his Starkville, Miss., home, moving his family or canvassing the coaching landscape for a few assistants. But instead, his first priority is to make sure the Lions' players know they are a part of a stable and soon-to-be successful program.

"There really haven't been a lot of questions about how I'm going to coach. I think they are more excited that there is a coach in place," McNickle said. "I'm excited about being here and being their coach, and I think they're going to enjoy playing in a program that they can be proud of."

After arriving in town Tuesday night for what's expected to be a 10- to 14-day stay, McNickle, who was announced as former coach Ricky Ware's successor Monday, began reaching out to the Lions' incoming recruits. He planned to speak to as many returning players as he could Wednesday, and will try to squeeze some recruiting into his schedule for the coming days.

Though McNickle hasn't had much time to size up his roster in person, he can tell by the stat sheet what needs to improve.

"From an outsider looking in, the offense was solid, the defense was OK and the pitching seemed to be the team's weakness last year," he said. "In my experience, mainly Mississippi State's College World Series run last year, pitching and defense wins ballgames."

McNickle is familiar with those areas, having served as Mississippi State's pitching coach for the last seven years. The Bulldogs won one Southeastern Conference title and advanced to five regional tournaments in addition to a 2007 College World Series appearance.

But McNickle seems comfortable with bolstering the pitching staff not through recruiting, but through old-fashioned coaching. The recruiting likely will be geared toward improving the team's depth in other areas.

"The biggest thing right now is finding some position players, because there is not much depth there," McNickle said. "Having your starting shortstop Bobby Munoz, second baseman Jonathan Duncan and center fielder Kyle Hobbs back is a positive, but obviously losing catcher Braulio Pardo to the draft created a need, and we also could use some pop in the corner outfield and infield positions. Who knows what we can find at this point in recruiting, but my Division I connections may be able to help in that area."

The 2008 season, in which MSU went 23-33, was the only losing team McNickle coached on since beginning his career as a graduate assistant for MSU in 1989. His 19 years as an assistant included a stint at Florida Southern, during which the Mocs won a national title and four Sunshine State Conference titles. He also coached at the University of South Florida and Central Florida Community College, giving him 10 years of experience coaching in Florida.

In 2001 at Meridian Community College (Miss.), his only season as a head coach, his team was 38-17 and earned the No. 1 seed for its regional tournament.
Saint Leo athletic director Fran Reidy said in announcing McNickle's hiring that he was elevated in part by his ability to "articulate a vision not only for our baseball program's future, but was able to do this in a manner that connected with our University's core values into his overall plan."

"We're going to base this program off of excellence - excellence in play, in communicating and in the classroom," he said. "I've spent the last seven years at an SEC-caliber institution, but there you had to worry about a booster club and 6,000 season ticket-holders in addition to everything else. Here there are less distractions - it's about developing the student-athlete and I look forward to doing that."

Correspondent Bart O'Connell can be reached at boconnell@pop.tampatrib.com.

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