Opening the Gate to Success

When the then-tattered Torero bus pulled up in front of the locker room late on a Sunday night in 2005, we unloaded our gear as a tired but very triumphant group. We had just won the Texas A&M Dominos Classic. We shut out the Aggies in front of a sellout crowd that provided an atmosphere that I will tell my children about. Our weekend also included wins over Evansville and a very good Washington team.

But, the thrill of accomplishment was short lived as we approached our locker room because we knew we had to hop the gate with our luggage before we could get into the locker room and home to catch a few hours of sleep before class the next day. The same scenario was true last year, coming home late after taking two of three from the Texas Longhorns on the road, proving our sweep of them as the top-ranked program in the country just a year earlier was no fluke. Again, we hopped the gate.

Being exhausted from a long weekend and a night of traveling fueled outbursts such as, “I bet Texas doesn’t hop any fences when they get home!” or “How high do we have to be ranked to get someone to unlock this thing for us?”

Well, the gate is open these days for us. Oh, and that “tattered bus” is now a half of a million dollar Torero bus that looks like it just got “pimped” in the West Coast Customs Garage.

It has been special to watch our program grow from a budding baseball program into a national contender. Just a year ago we would have people come up to us to shake our hands on the road and to talk about how they have been anticipating us coming into town and go home and be “no-namers.” But that is a part of the growing pains, I guess. Here, it took national recognition to get local recognition.

Just this week, Kevin Hansen and I were down the street from campus in line at a local convenience store when a campus Public Safety officer tapped us on the shoulder. He jokingly asked us if we needed any tickets, and was proud to display four tickets to our game Friday.

I don’t know if I was more amazed that he bought tickets for the game or that he knew we were USD baseball players. Either way, times have changed in Torero town and the future is bright here. The Toreros have a week on the road against quality programs in Cal State Fullerton and Pepperdine. This time, at least, the gate will be open when we get home.

Logan Gelbrich 

(action photo by Brock Scott)