The 2008 Division I college baseball regular season wrapped up last weekend, and each of the conference tournaments, including the Southeastern Conference, concluded this past weekend. Then early Monday afternoon, the NCAA’s national tournament field was announced.

When all 64 teams had been announced, nine of the names were familiar SEC names: SEC tournament #1 seed Georgia (35-21-1) - a team that will host a regional, #2 seed LSU (43-16-1) - another team that will host while looking to continue their 20 game win streak, #3 seed Florida (34-22), #4 seed Kentucky (42-17), #5 seed Alabama (34-26), #6 seed Vanderbilt (40-20) - after they fell a single run short of the SEC championship game, #7 seed South Carolina (38-21), #8 seed Ole Miss (37-24) - who became the first #8 seed to make it to the SEC title game, and Arkansas (34-22) - a team that made the national tournament without even making their own conference tournament.

One of the three SEC teams that did not make the national tournament is a Tennessee baseball team that finished 27-29 overall (the first losing season since 2002) and failed to even make the SEC tournament after having previously making the national tournament in three of five seasons from 2001-2005, including twice making the College World Series during that span. As far as this season, many point to this being the first year of a rebuilding project under Coach Todd Raleigh, and it may very well be a couple of seasons before the program can be restored to national prominence.

The question I ask myself, however, is ‘What was wrong with the University of Tennessee baseball program before Raleigh got here? ‘

True, in the past, when you arrived at Lindsey Nelson Stadium, you never really knew whether Jekyll or Hyde would take the field under the mentoring of former Coach Rod Delmonico. On the other hand, you did know every couple of years there was a good possibility there was going to be an opportunity to take a trip out to Omaha in June.

Having no cable TV growing up as a child, I ate all of my vegetables at dinner during the spring and early summer in anxious anticipation of turning on the radio to hear John Wilkerson call the games for the Vols. I even had the pleasure of attending the preseason banquet hosted at Thompson-Boling, where Brett Butler gave a very inspirational speech that has stuck with me to this day. Point being, I was a bigger fan of that program than any major league or minor league team growing up.

Coach Delmonico built the program I idolized growing up into something all college baseball fans in this area could be excited about. His .638 winning percentage beats is second best all time at Tennessee for any coach that spent more than one season at the university. The only coach with a higher percentage coached at the turn of the 20th century (Frank Moffett - .656 winning percentage in 8 seasons between 1903 and 1918). Coach Delmonico’s teams won the SEC tournament 3 times and made the College World Series three times (the last time only two years before he was let go).

Several MLB players came through the program under his guidance. Todd Helton, Chris Burke, R.A. Dickey, and the 2006 #1 overall pick Luke Hochevar are just a few former Volunteers that represent the Vol program at the highest level of their chosen profession.

Sure, the Vols were hit or miss from year to year, but it is a unique challenge in college baseball to produce a consistent winner. Unlike most other major sports, a high percentage of the most talented baseball players in high school forgo college and enter into the professional ranks in the minor leagues.

When Delmonico left, it is not as though the cupboard was left bare with the outlook bleak for the Tennessee program. Returning was to be a group of young talent led by shortstop and son of Coach Delmonico, Tony Delmonico Jr.

While I am not advocating that coaches should be kept on or fired based on family situations or that one position player can carry a baseball team, Delmonico Jr. has been stellar in the middle of the infield and middle of the lineup for the Florida State Seminoles. He has hit .370 for the 48-win FSU squad that has been tabbed as the #4 overall seed in the national tournament. Along with him, there was a core of other young players that, given time, would have made a solid nucleus with the potential to push to get back to the prior Omaha standards.

Some times it takes “new blood” to energize a program, and only time will tell if Raleigh will be able to build a consistent winner that can return to the College World Series. As a Tennessee Volunteer baseball fan and a baseball fan in general, I certainly wish him the best in trying to fix what actually might not have been broken to begin with. For now, however, I am resigned to watch as nine other SEC teams will take the field in the national tournament while my Volunteers and I watch from home.

Heisman

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