Former Terps coach Erik Bakich now leads Michigan.
When Terrapins baseball coach John Szefc arrived in College Park nearly three years ago, he inherited a program on the rise.
The previous season the Terps won 32 games, their highest win total in 10 years, and went 10-20 in the competitive ACC. But the program was in need of a leader after former coach Erik Bakich left for Michigan in the summer of 2012.
Szefc stabilized the situation and built on Bakich’s success. Last season, Szefc guided the Terps to their first-ever Super Regional appearance.
And this weekend, Szefc and the Terps will face Bakich’s squad when they travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for their first Big Ten road series.
Three players remain from Bakich’s reign, and his staff recruited many of the Terps’ current juniors. While Bakich downplays his role in the Terps success, his replacement believes Bakich built a solid base.
“When we got here, there were a lot of good players here already,” Szefc said. “We were just fortunate enough to take the next step.”
Military-style workouts and “Mental Toughness Wednesdays” were the norm under Bakich. While the Terps do similar exercises under Szefc, they are held less frequently.
Although some of Bakich’s former players and recruits have transferred to other schools — most notably former third baseman K.J. Hockaday — the emphasis on persistence and resiliency resonates with the three players who remain.
“Bakich and his coaching staff did lay the foundation for this program,” senior right-hander Bobby Ruse said. “A lot of hard work, that’s probably the main thing I got from him.”
And the Terps view the transfers as a natural result of a coaching change.
“Some guys end up transferring out because they didn’t really see themselves fitting in with the kind of coaching style or different reasons,” said right fielder Anthony Papio, who redshirted in 2012, Bakich’s final season.
Although Bakich doesn’t coach the Terps anymore, he still roots for the school’s sports, including the men’s and women’s basketball teams. This past spring, he watched the Terps baseball team run through the NCAA tournament with pride.
“I couldn’t have been more fired up for their run last year,” Bakich said. “That being said, this weekend they’re our opponents.”
Before the series starts though, Ruse, Papio and left-hander Robert Galligan — the three former players — plan to chat with Bakich. They also look forward to reminiscing with former assistant Sean Kenny and former teammate Aaron Etchison, who are on Bakich’s current staff.
Papio has kept in sporadic contact with Etchison, and Ruse hasn’t seen Bakich or Kenny since they departed.
“You try not to look ahead too much to other games but it definitely did stand out,” Ruse said of the series with Michigan. “Just because it is my previous coach.”
While Szefc and Bakich competed over the years as assistants on the recruiting trail, Szefc’s first memory of Bakich is as a player. In 2000, Szefc was a fifth-year coach at Marist College, and Bakich was a senior standout at East Carolina when they met in the NCAA regionals.
But this weekend, the two will face off as head coaches.
“My philosophy has never really been to focus too much on the other team,” Bakich said. “We kind of had a saying that our opponents are nameless and faceless, and we had that [philosophy] when I coached at Maryland.”
