(photo courtesy of UCI Athletic Media Relations)
In December of 2011, UC Irvine coach Mike Gillespie, thanks in large part at the urging of UCLA coach John Savage, agreed to teach about offensive philosophy and baserunning at a coaches clinic in Southern California that I helped organize.
Rather than dive right into his baseball philosophies, Gillespie opened with philosophies of life.
Why did I choose this profession? What are my goals, of which he wrote in his outline, “To develop a winner! Must become as complete as possible…there is no ‘little thing.’ Must pay attention to detail, must develop the skills to exploit any opportunity, to gain an edge, to force the play, be disciplined. Understand that often games are lost rather than won.”
And this gem: Write your own “book.”
Gillespie did just that, authoring a brilliant coaching career that spanned 47 years and managing more than 1,500 games that were won, rather than lost. A giant on and off the baseball diamond and as gracious and genuine as they come, Gillespie passed away today at the age of 80.
One of two people to win a College World Series championship as a player and as a coach – Jerry Kindall is the other – Gillespie’s resume speaks for itself.
He was part of USC’s 1961 national champion team, and after posting a 420-167 record in 16 seasons at College of the Canyons, he took over for his former coach, Rod Dedeaux, as head coach of the Trojans. At USC, Gillespie guided the Trojans to 15 NCAA tournament appearances in 20 years, including four trips to Omaha and one national championship in 1998.
After a year in the minors, he reemerged in 2008 at UC Irvine, where Savage and Dave Serrano had built a strong foundation for a program that restarted in 2002 after a 10-year hiatus. In his first four years, Gillespie took the Anteaters to four Regionals and two Super Regionals. In 2014, he made his return to Omaha with a team that lost its final eight conference games and entered the tournament with 10 home runs and averaging a slim 4.26 runs per game.
Gillespie, known fondly as “Skip,” retired after the 2018 season with a ledger of 1,576 wins, 887 losses and two ties.
“Skip had a presence about him that you seldom see or feel,” said Savage, who was an assistant under Gillespie at USC and led UCLA to a national title in 2013. “He was a true leader in every sense of the word. An elite teacher of the game and a role model for myself and for so many other coaches. His impact was felt in every program that he led and any opponent that he ever faced. A true baseball coach, one who knew the game and the people who played it.”
Added Serrano, now the head coach at Cal State Northridge: “Skip was the ultimate coach. I had the honor to compete against him as a player and as a coach. One of the best in-game coaches in the college game. He would do anything at any time, and he always kept the opponent on their toes. I had so much respect for him and always looked at him as the ‘John Wayne’ of college coaches.”
To say Gillespie was unpredictable is unappreciative. Bunts, squeezes and hit and runs were almost predictable. Almost. You knew they were coming, just not when.
And steals of home.
Seriously, most coaches have the guts to call one or two over a career. Gillespie estimated in a Los Angeles Times interview in 2018 that he called for stealing home about 50 times. That included giving the sign to Morgan Ensberg in the 1998 national championship game. Seriously. Stealing home in the national championship game, a 21-14 slugfest.
“He was a master of baseball,” Savage said. “He could see things coming that normal people could not.”
Gillespie mixed brilliance with wit. Consider these two thoughts from the same press conference in 2011, when UC Irvine endured a long rain delay, and Gillespie turned to a freshman pitcher with its season on the line to even its Super Regional at Virginia at one.
“He has, for the most part, demonstrated uncommon poise and experience that belies his years; I’m not dumbstruck that he did so well,” he said of pitcher Andrew Thurman.
As for the rain delay, he quipped, “I think the rain delay seemed to be what the doctor ordered, along with the ballpark hamburgers that we ate on the way out.”
At that coaches clinic on that December Saturday in 2011, months after his Anteaters were one strike away from reaching Omaha before Chris Taylor’s single put Virginia in the College World Series, Gillespie spoke last after Savage, Long Beach State’s Troy Buckley and Cal State Fullerton’s Rick Vanderhook. He carried a bat for most of the hour but barely talked about mechanics. He taught about baseball. He taught about life.
He ended his outline with some “miscellaneous” items. To all who had been listening, they knew by then to pay attention until Gillespie was done.
His last two items: “We require: Do it the way we’ve taught/drilled/trained, and play hard every pitch” and “We also require: Do it with class.”
It’s no wonder Gillespie’s book was so successful.