Technically, Andy Lopez is no longer part of the Arizona baseball program. The legendary coach retired last spring after 14 seasons in Tucson that included a College World Series championship.
Spiritually, Lopez is still present. His imprint is everywhere.
All but four players on the Wildcats’ roster signed with Arizona while Lopez was the coach. Most of the key figures on this year’s team — which faces Sam Houston State on Friday in Game 1 of the NCAA’s Lafayette Regional — played for Lopez.
“There’s some Andy Lopez in us still,” senior pitcher Nathan Bannister said. “He gave us the opportunity to play. … That’s all you can ask for as a college athlete, to be honest, just the opportunity to play and compete and prove yourself. I’ll forever be grateful for that.”
Arizona reached the postseason for the first time since 2012 under first-year coach Jay Johnson with a team primarily consisting of Lopez’s players. The four who arrived after his late-May retirement: pitchers Cody Deason and Kevin Ginkel, catcher Ryan Haug, and third baseman Kyle Lewis.
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That Johnson didn’t recruit the bulk of the roster doesn’t lessen his accomplishments this season. That a handful of seniors blossomed after Lopez left doesn’t mean he lost his touch when it came to developing players.
There are myriad misconceptions about coaching transitions. Three stand out when it comes to Lopez, Johnson and Arizona:
Misconception No. 1: Everything is awesome now, so it had to be terrible before.
This is the most popular narrative in the wake of most coaching changes, no matter the sport or level. Players embrace the exciting, aggressive ways of the new staff. The old staff’s methods suffer by comparison.
It’s not as sexy to portray the new staff’s approach as simply … different. But what if that’s actually the case? What if Lopez’s players just happened to click with Johnson and his assistants?
“The end result we’re all going for is very similar,” said senior pitcher Tyler Crawford, the last remaining member of the ’12 championship squad. “What coach Lopez wanted and coach Johnson wants, they’re very similar things. We’re playing the game the right way.
“The biggest difference, with this coaching staff, they want us to be free and easy and loose. That’s a main point that they drive home. With the old coaching staff, they wanted us to do that, but it wasn’t necessarily something we talked about.”
That’s a significant change, to be sure, but also a subtle one. If you don’t pay close attention to the players’ interactions in and around the dugout, you might not even notice it.
Asked what lessons he learned from Lopez, senior pitcher Cody Moffett said: “He definitely taught us how to deal with adversity very well.” Moffett quickly added that Johnson excels in that area as well.
“It’s great to have two different sides of coaching,” senior outfielder Zach Gibbons said. “Jay’s more coaching on the field. Lopez is more … getting you ready for life.”
The most tangible difference between the old and the new can be found in the Wildcats’ results. They qualified for the tournament after failing to do so the past three seasons. But then, that might be the wrong verb.
Misconception No. 2: Going three years without making the postseason signifies an unsuccessful run.
Of course Lopez wanted to make the playoffs the past three seasons, and it pained him and everyone associated with the team that the UA came up short, especially after a College World Series title.
But the program accomplished something substantial during those three postseason-less years: the building of the current squad.
“He recruited a lot of these players,” Johnson said of Lopez, “and had the foresight to see that some of them would be good at some point — and they are.”
Johnson recalled one of his favorite lines from “Coaching Baseball Successfully,” Lopez’s 1996 book: “Recruiting’s like shaving. If you don’t do it every day, you’re going to end up looking bad.”
Lopez clearly recruited well. For whatever reason, Arizona’s results the past few years did not reflect its talent until after he left.
Several seniors — including Bannister, Gibbons, Ryan Aguilar and Cody Ramer — are having their best seasons this year. Maybe they just needed to hear a new voice. Maybe the new staff found motivational buttons to push what the previous regime couldn’t locate. Maybe timing is just a fickle thing.
“Development just comes at different times for some guys,” Johnson said.
Or, as UA athletic director Greg Byrne put it: “There’s a bunch of good baseball players that coach Lopez and the previous staff recruited. (Johnson and his staff) have done a great job of putting it all together.”
Lopez gladly defers credit to the current coaches.
“They’ve done a marvelous job,” he said.
Lopez uttered those words without a hint of animosity.
Misconception No. 3: The coach who’s no longer around feels bitter about his former team winning with his players.
Make no mistake: Lopez is happy for his former players. He’s especially pleased that the seniors finally are getting a taste of postseason baseball.
“Oh heck yeah,” Lopez said with typical enthusiasm in a recent phone interview. “I’m excited for them. Those are good guys.”
Even though he coached at the UA for a long time and won a lot of games — 490, to be exact — Lopez firmly believes it was never about him.
“This was never my program,” said Lopez, who served as an analyst for Pac-12 Networks this season. “I was in charge of it for 14, 15 years or whatever it was. The program was in existence for a long time before I showed up, and it will be for a long time after I’m gone.
“I had my time. I enjoyed every moment of it.”
He’s enjoying the aftermath as well.
