The Man Who Wasn't Going To Be a Baseball Coach graduated from UCLA and interviewed with the Aetna people. Maybe he would sell life insurance.
He had sold Christmas trees. He had painted houses. Wouldn't selling insurance be better than working the docks, a longshoreman, driving a crane or packing fish? His father had worked at the Los Angeles harbor forever. His parents had met at the fish cannery, shift workers on the assembly line.
But working the docks seemed to be the Lopez family destiny.
"It was always in my head that I was going to be a longshoreman," Andy Lopez says now. "All of my extended family worked there: uncles, cousins even nieces. Being a coach never entered my mind. Never, ever, ever."
This unexpected twist, this life as a college baseball coach, 1,080 victories in 30 years, still makes Lopez shake his head the way a guy shakes his head when he can't believe his good fortune.
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He wanted to be a ballplayer. He was drafted in the ninth round by Detroit, No 195 overall, in 1975. He wasn't anyone's idea of a bonus baby, but at UCLA, Andy Lopez was a smart guy who made the best of the modest skills the baseball gods had given him.
His father, Art Lopez, who had moved to Southern California from Mexico, when he was 12, working as a laborer to survive with his 17-year-old brother, Al, had another vision.
He wanted his son to complete his education at UCLA and forget the silliness of baseball. It was just a game, right?
"My dad said, 'Andy, no one in our family has ever gotten a college degree. You need that more than you need to play that game.' I was angry. I wanted to be a ballplayer. Who doesn't? But my dad said baseball wouldn't last. He was right."
Incredibly, Lopez stayed in school, at UCLA, and finished his degree.
He might be the only player in the history of the major-league draft, 1969-2011, selected in the first 10 rounds who neither signed a contract nor pursued baseball. Nobody just walks away, not when you're 23 and the Detroit Tigers are prepared to write you a check.
It was the decision of his life.
Lopez returned to his former junior college, Los Angeles Harbor, and became an assistant baseball coach. While there, he spent extra time with a backup third baseman, Jeff Turchi. He would encourage Turchi, throw extra batting practice and give him the advice of an older man. It might've been Coaching 101, but Lopez cared and Turchi's father, a SoCal dentist, Lewis J. Turchi, noticed. He appreciated the bond between his son and the young coach from UCLA.
One of Lewis Turchi's patients was Dick Jacobsen, superintendent of the South Bay School District. At the dentist's office, the two chatted about the baseball coaching vacancy at Mira Costa High School. The dentist recommended his son's coach at L.A. Harbor.
"Dick Jacobsen called me, cold, out of the blue, and asked if I was interested in teaching Spanish, coaching frosh football and varsity baseball," Lopez remembers. "I thought it was a prank call."
Lopez coached and taught five seasons at Mira Costa. His team reached the CIF finals at Dodger Stadium and attracted considerable attention. He insists he planned to leave high school coaching after five years, but in Year 5, the athletic director at Cal State-Dominguez Hills phoned and asked him to interview for a job coaching the Toros.
Thus, there would be no Plan B. The young man who wasn't going to be a baseball coach turned out to be all baseball coach.
By 1992, Lopez had gone to Pepperdine and led the Waves to the NCAA championship. By 1995, he became the head coach at Florida.
Baseball was no longer just "that game."
In 2001, the Gators paid Lopez almost $1 million not to coach the final three years of his contract. His alma mater, UCLA, wanted him to come home and coach the Bruins. Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood twice pursued Lopez, first when Jerry Kindall retired in 1996, and with more vigor in 2002.
Along the way, had he shown more interest, he might've become the coach at Washington State, Cal-Irvine, USC, Cal State-Fullerton or, in 1995, Arizona State.
After 36 seasons of coaching and 11 at Arizona, you might think Andy Lopez has seen it all, You might think, at 58, he has become numb to the journey.
Sunday afternoon, in a tense showdown with Arizona State with the Pac-12 title on the line for the Wildcats, Lopez left the bench between innings to get a drink of Gatorade. He had been so focused on the game - on Arizona's 20-year battle to win a league title and to play host to an NCAA regional - that he was the last man at Hi Corbett Field to hear the news.
A student manager congratulated him.
"For what?" Lopez asked.
"We're hosting the regionals," he was told.
Lopez stood in the space between the UA dugout and its clubhouse and rubbed tears from his eyes.
"Man," he said. "I wish my dad could be here to see this."
