Ryan ChartrandLarry Lee is a baseball man. Always has been, always will be.
“All this time I thought I had a grip on baseball, but baseball had a grip on me,” Lee said.
However, there are more important things than baseball in Lee’s life. His career record as a college coach over 25 years stands at 614-362-5; Lee has internalized every one of them.
“It’s a 24-hour job,” Lee said of coaching. “It’s tough, but you can’t allow it to affect your family life.”
Lee, 47, has a son (Brooks) and a daughter (Jenna) with his wife Liz. He tells how Jenna recently changed the theme of her room to baseball. He cracks a smile as a proud father.
Lee’s baseball odyssey began in San Luis Obispo and will likely end here. He went to San Luis Obispo High, became the head coach at Cuesta College and is now in his fifth year as Cal Poly’s head coach.
“(Cal Poly) is it for me,” Lee says of his career aspirations. “For me, it’s not about ego. I want to raise my family in this area and be the best father and husband I can be.”
Lee wishes the same for his players; he leans forward in his chair, hands together to emphasize that point.
He learned the game at an early age from his father and older brothers. He speaks intently and deliberately as if the wrong words may disrespect the people he is talking about.
“My dad grew up during the Depression, and served in World War II,” Lee said. “He sacrificed his athletic career for his family. He was one of those rare coaches who was ahead of his time from a fundamental standpoint, very inventive. He had so much respect for his players.”
Although he says his coaching style differs from his father’s, there is a sense that such an admission would be sacrilege. There is no doubt the indelible impact Lee’s family has had upon him. Despite the baseball legends who grace the walls of his office, Lee cites his older brother Terry as his baseball hero.
His players have a tremendous amount of respect for him. There are no mind games and they know the door is always open. At a home game against Fresno State on Feb. 6, an anonymous pitcher was asked what Lee is like when he comes out to the mound.
“You don’t want to see (Lee) come out to the mound,” the pitcher said. “That means your night is over.”
A picture begins to form of Lee marching stoically to the mound. His raven hair edging out of a green cap pulled down over his eyes, his hands emerge from his pockets, which they rarely do during a game.
He reaches out for the ball. The pitcher hands it to him and walks off the mound.
“He doesn’t scream at you or anything,” the pitcher says. “You just know he’s not happy. You feel like you let him down. That’s much worse.”
Like the father who tells you “I’m not mad at you, I’m just disappointed.”
Yelling would actually seem like a welcome reprieve, as opposed to the silent treatment.
However, it’s just not in Lee’s temperament.
Lee is by no means intimidating, in the classic sense of the word. His voice is soft but focused, never breaking its audible stride.
Nonetheless, his demeanor conveys an intensity that commands respect.
The players sit in the dugout facing him and the coaching staff, the squad is quiet for the first time all day. Lee does not employ the histrionics that the majority of coaches do. His hands stay tucked under his arms or in the pockets of his jacket. He calmly analyzes areas of improvement for his team and the tendencies of the opponent.
Lee is not a disciplinarian. He doesn’t have to be. His assistants are usually the loudest people on the field – teasing, scolding and appraising via shouts – but there is no doubt he is in charge.
Coaching in general is a grind. Coaching baseball is a tedious, never-ending scrape from season to season.
However, it doesn’t appear to affect Lee, at least externally.
“I put a lot of pressure.on myself,” Lee said. “Internally I get embarrassed if we don’t play well.”
For the first time, his competitive nature comes through, the tension of more than 900 games etched into his bronzed face. A quiet intensity falls over him as he speaks.
“I’m a competitive person,” Lee explains, adding, “I never thought about coaching when I played.”
Lee admits he never really thought about a life without baseball. After graduating from Pepperdine in 1983, he spent a short amount of time playing professional baseball for the Seattle Mariners’ minor-league system.
After the dream ended, he needed a competitive outlet, and coaching filled that void. He is simplistic in his approach to coaching. Very old-school, possibly in homage to his father.
Lee stresses basic fundamentals, allowing players to become their own best coach.
There are a lot of factors that go into molding a successful baseball team – chemistry, pitching, defense, timely hitting, recruiting and health. Recruiting is the genesis of that formula, and that’s not always an easy job.
“We treat every recruit differently,” Lee said. “We don’t make promises to anyone. We are honest about the way things are here. This is an academic school. We don’t have the greatest stadium. I mean, we have a pasture behind the stadium.”
The true test of a great coach is whether you would trust them to mold your son or daughter during their formative years. It is tough to imagine many parents of Lee’s players losing sleep over such a notion.
Lee exudes humility and honesty. It is obvious he would rather be doing something else besides being interviewed by a cub reporter for a student newspaper. However, he has too much integrity to do anything but answer questions candidly, with unwavering eyes.
This season, Lee’s recruiting prowess has been put to the test. Last year’s team was 29-27 but lost 14 players to the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft or graduation.
Lee began the season with only three returning starters. Generally, the more upperclassmen a team has, the better off it is. Lee has 14 freshmen on his current team, although he makes no excuses for the young squad.
“We are very young at this point,” Lee says emphatically, “but there is no reason why we can’t make some noise right now. I look forward to watching this team grow.”
This team will be a challenge. A lot of the key players are used to the speed of the high school game. However, Lee is still excited about tracking their progress. In fact, Lee cites the collective journey – recruiting, teaching and molding a team – as his favorite part of coaching. Wins and losses are only the end result of such labor.
That labor is on display on a warm day in February. America’s pastime is playing out as it always has. It may not be a little-league field, but the sounds of practice are the same. The ping of projectiles exploding off aluminum bats, the smack of leather gloves as they receive another ball, the excited banter of the players and coaches.
Adorned in a black nylon sweat suit, running shoes and sunglasses that hide his brown eyes, Lee calls the team over to the dugout. He stands at the front of the dugout, going over the battle plan for the Mustangs’ upcoming opponent, the University of Washington Huskies.
He is of average height and build; even in the track suit he seems proportionate, almost rectangular. He moves with an athletic grace that immediately betrays his past.
His sleek, black hair tumbles over the top of his visor. His face is weathered and tanned from decades under the spring and summer sun. His features are mellow, with a crescent moon face and rounded chin.
Anyone who has seen St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa would have a hard time telling the two apart. Even the demeanor of the pair is strikingly similar – soft spoken, all business.
After he releases the team for the second half of practice, he returns to his post behind the batting cage. He rarely speaks, but when he does, it is usually to offer encouragement. Lee clasps his fingers in the netting of the cage, watching each swing intently, looking for a flaw. Searching for an edge.
Practice seems chaotic.
Every able-bodied player is on the field, hitting, fielding or pitching. It may appear haphazard, but there is an efficient symmetry to all the activity. A coach pitches, a player hits the ball and fielders cycle the balls back to the infield. A well-oiled machine, no motion is wasted. After each position group hits, Lee shouts a short, terse command and players hustle in to take their turn in the cage.
Just one facet in that collective journey, but not the most important.
Lee has a saying: “It’s all about what happens when the lights come on.”
Intently, he explains, “I’ve seen plenty of guys who play well in practice but can’t put it together in games. I enjoy everything coming together in a game setting.”
When the lights do come on, the Mustangs begin the 2007 season losing their first five games.
Whatever the anticipated strain on his character, it isn’t there in a physical sense. The face is still subdued, yet the eyes are intensely focused.
“We didn’t do well in any facet of the game,” Lee says after the fifth loss, to San Diego State on Feb. 2. “We embarrassed ourselves tonight.”
Losing eats at him and the tension is turned inward, like an embarrassing secret.
It’s no secret why his players play so hard for him; he gives an exhaustive amount of himself to his team and the game. Not surprising from a man who once hit 13 sacrifice flies, the most unselfish act in baseball, in one season.
Baseball’s a funny game.
As slow and cumbersome as the action may appear, momentum can shift at any given time.
For Lee and the Mustangs, that shift comes in the next game against San Diego State. The Mustangs win 11-6 and proceed to reel off four more wins for a five-game winning streak.
Cal Poly currently stands 24-23 overall and 8-7 in the Big West Conference.
In the midst of the earlier winning streak, though, after a victory against Fresno State, it appears that Lee has yet to break out of his early-season doldrums. On the other hand, maybe he reacts to both in the same fashion.
Never too high, never to low. He applauds his team’s efforts, but offers no supernatural explanation for his team’s turnaround.
“I’m proud of these guys,” Lee says of his squad. “We are putting everything together right now; pitching, hitting and defense. These guys have worked very hard the last couple of weeks and it’s showing on the field.”
The face is still stoic, though the tension has been relieved. He is more relaxed, but judging from his erect posture and lack of enthusiasm, one would be hard-pressed to guess whether this was a man immersed in a five-game winning or losing streak.
The truth is, it’s both.
A couple more steps in a long journey.