We Are Family! Alumni Weekend a Hit – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/22/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Greg Beals didn’t coach one of the 50-or-so ex-Buckeyes on the benches at Bill Davis Stadium for an Ohio State baseball alumni game on a glorious, most recent Saturday evening. But he didn’t need to have coached them.
Scores of them returned to campus this past weekend at the invitation of Beals and assistant coaches Mike Stafford, Chris Holick and Josh Newman. Regardless when they played or who they played for, they came back to show support for Beals, just the fourth coach in the last 50 years of the program, his staff and the players and future players in the program.
The baseball alumni represented rosters as recent as 2010 (Ryan Dew and Shawn Forsythe) and 2002 (Derek Kinnear and Scott Lewis) to 1997-99 (Mike Lockwood) and the early 1990s (Mike Estep, 1993-96 and Matt Beaumont, 1992-94). The alumni reached well back into the 1970s (Terry Streng, 1972-73) and even further back into the 1960s (John Sonedecker, 1964; Rich Marcucci, 1966).
In all, players from the coaching eras of Marty Karow, Dick Finn and Bob Todd all returned to support the start of the coaching era of Greg Beals.
And they came back to have a good time. Many played a round of golf on Friday. Many more, and their families, tailgated at Bill Davis Stadium and watched the Buckeyes and the Ohio Bobcats on big screens in the player’s lounge and coaches offices. And then the willing and the brave threw on the spikes one more time for an alumni game that was competitive, fun and full of good times and good moments.
“This is great,” Bob Spears, Class of 1996, said minutes after he pitched his second and final inning in the alumni game, one in which Streng stroked a double to right off him. “This is an outstanding event…to get all of us players back here. I’m loving it.”
The alumni weekend was good for the new coaches, as well. It allowed Beals and his staff to get in front of and to firmly establish ties and relationships to the proud baseball alumni of Ohio State’s oldest varsity sport.
“I embrace tradition and I want our alumni to be a huge part of this program,” Beals, who has two OSU alums on his staff in pitching coach Stafford and volunteer assistant Newman, said. “I think it is incredibly important for our players to know they have support from the former players in this program. The more our players see that people care about them, the more their commitment to excellence grows on and off the field.”
After such a successful weekend of embracing the past, consider the seeds of commitment from the baseball alumni planted. And that is a good thing for the future of Ohio State baseball.
###OhioStateBuckeyes.com##
2010 Ohio State Baseball Alumni Weekend Attendees
Name – Years Lettered and/or Team Member
Mike Repasky – 1992-94
Brett Hatcher – 2004-05
Matt Beaumont – 1992-94
Chris Ellis – 1993-96
Mike Estep – 1993-96
Derek Kinnear – 2001-04
Mike Rabin – 2002-05
Lance Rolston – 2000-02
Matt Davis – 2002-03
Tony Khoury – 1990-92-93
John Sweet – 1992-94
Jedidiah Stephen – 2003-06
Bob Spears – 1994-96
Alex Eckelman – 1994-97
Chad Hickman – 1994
Dan Matthews – 1993-95
Jason Turner – 1997-2000
Bill Venter – 1987-89
Jacob Howell -2004-07
Scott Lewis – 2002-04
Doug Deeds – 2001-02
Ted Mondezelewski – 1971-72
Trent McIlvain – 1998-01
Kyle Brown – 2000-03
Brett Garrard – 2001-04
Dan Delucia – 2004-06, 2008
Gary Jones – 1991-94
Terry Streng – 1972-73
Christian Snavely – 2001-03
Mike Arp – 2006-09
Rich Marcucci – 1966
Chris Furrow – 1987-88
Kevan Cannon – 1993-95
Dennis Pachner – 1992-94
Terry Fausnaugh – 2004-07
Mike Lockwood – 1997-99
Jim Hufford – 1985-88
Chris Alvord – 1999-2001
Ryan Dew – 2007-10
Mike Harris – 2001
Mark Chonko – 1993-96
Dan Zabloudil – 1997-98
Mick Skelton – 1996
Ronnie Bourquin – 2004-06
Josh Newman – 2001-04
Mike Stafford – 1997-98
Scott Todd – 1993-96
Jim Townsend – 1984-87
Jon Sonedecker – 1964
