This Week in UNC Baseball: Bigger Than The Wins

Inside Carolina’s Grace Nugent and Tommy Ashley spoke to North Carolina head coach Scott Forbes on a variety of topics about his No. 2-ranked Tar Heels during their weekly conversation. Scroll down for excerpts or watch the full interview below…

2006 Team Back in Town

Scott Forbes: “That was awesome. Hanging out with the 2006 guys and to have that type of buzz around the GT series was even better. I felt good about our chances, too, because those guys were here, and they’re going to bring us a lot of good mojo. To see them 20 years later, when they’re together, it’s like they’re back here together when they played. Obviously, they’re 20 years older, they’ve got kids everywhere, running around. 

“Coach Fox did a great job helping or leading that charge with Carter Hicks, Dave Arendas and Daniel…we just had a blast, and everything was well run, and the guys had a blast. Just a really special time for me too, because they are the reason I’m sitting in this chair. Not 99% the reason — 100% the reason. So I’m always going to be incredibly in debt to them, and owe a ton of gratitude to them…

“I wanted to educate our current guys and show them how they did it. This is the belief system that they had, and how hard they work, how much time, effort, energy, they put in. They were disciplined and we learned even more getting together with these guys, how disciplined they decided to be during that season. They felt like they could do something special, and they made those decisions off the field – to get their sleep, even way back then, to try to take care of their bodies and be ready to play every single day. That just started off and went four years in a row. 

“So I told them (the impact of those 2006 and beyond teams). We were on TV. Young players always talk about watching the College World Series in North Carolina. Carolina was there, again and again and again. The uniforms, the colors, and that helped so much in the recruiting world, and it still helps to this day.”

Traits in Pitchers You Look For

Forbes: “As far as the individual traits that the pitchers have, they’re athletic, they have a ton of upside. They’re competitive, they have command. You feel like they have an idea of where the ball’s going when it comes out of their hand. If you don’t have command in 10th grade or 11th grade, you’re usually not just going to magically figure out how to put the ball where you want to. That’s the biggest thing we’ve stayed true to from what I saw when I got here.

“Roger Williams (former UNC pitching coach) put a big emphasis on that and the talent. Andrew Miller, people don’t realize how athletic he was. He ran a 60 on scout day for fun, because that was Andrew Miller, and he ran like a 6.6. Robert Woodard won 34 games here and played a good third base and was a good high school position player. Daniel Bard hit absolute bombs in high school. All those guys were athletic and the type of guys you had to keep off the basketball court so they don’t get hurt. 

“And it’s funny, out in California our hotel was attached to a really nice fitness center and had a gym. The pitchers played knockout one day, and then a couple of them started dunking. You’d be shocked. I’m talking windmill dunks, backwards dunks. So that athleticism and that command, but most important, the intangible of being a competitor and competing with the toughness factor while also being able to understand the team concept.”

Growth as a Coach Since 2006

Forbes: “The biggest thing that has changed for me, and this is as a human being, my faith has grown tremendously. Obviously, I’m never going to push it on anybody else, but when you grow through something and you believe in something, you also try to coach through that lens. Your temper should get better. I had a short fuse. Said many things to players that I wish I hadn’t said. Coach Saban said it best talking about the opportunity to be a transformational coach. We’re all human beings, and I’m going to fail. And I’m sure there are times where our players are like, is he really trying to be transformational? Because he does not seem like that today.

“So the biggest thing has been that and understanding – and we talk every day as a staff – why do you coach? We’ve been so blessed to get into coaching, for goodness sakes. I lived across the street in a basement of a lady’s home and for $250 a month and made $5,000.  It’s different now and if you get fortunate enough to be in a better position, you have to keep your humility and go back to, well, why did you start coaching in the first place? 

“This is a business that now has grown so much and you’ve got so much notoriety, but it still goes down to the same thing. While we want to win a national championship, we won’t win every game and I’m never going to sleep good when we lose. That’s not going to change until I stop coaching. But what does help you sleep better is if you just remind yourself those wins are eventually going to be gone. Even the losses that hurt are going to be gone. But when I go see Andrew Miller or Matt McNichol or Mike Facchinei or Tyler Trice or Chad Flack – I can name the whole roster – they’re not going to be gone. So I remind myself of that daily.”

Why Coach?

Forbes: “Well, I did it for fun in 1998 because I was on the five-year plan at the junior college I went to. The academics didn’t go great so a lot didn’t transfer into North Carolina Wesleyan, so I had to stay another year. I’d gone home and Coach Fox called me and told me about a volunteer assistant position he thought I’d be interested in. I didn’t grow up a UNC fan. I didn’t know much about Chapel Hill. I always thought that people that came to UNC basketball games were rich because the Dean Dome was so nice. But I said sure, why not?

“But I would say the moment that it hit me was when I went to Winthrop. I left here. I didn’t know anybody on the staff. Coach Hudak hired me as the hitting coach. He said, by the way, you’re going to be the strength coach, because we don’t have one. And I thought that was great. 

“Those three years at Winthrop were awesome, man. I loved Rock Hill. We won a Big South championship as a team. We were two seed in the Tennessee regional. That’s when I really started thinking this is awesome. I just love being on the field every day. I love recruiting. I love just the challenge of trying to get great players. I burned up the road and I know South Carolina. It just hit me, like I just love baseball. I love the coaching, and love being around the players and and at the time I got to Winthrop, I got a car. It was a red Pontiac and I was making $30,000 and I thought I was loaded at the time.

“Then I came back here, Coach took that gamble on me and then really, in 2011, 2012 I started thinking I wonder if I could maybe be a head coach. So those Winthrop years, because I wasn’t sure until I went there and I’m glad I went there and because it was just new. I have a lot to owe to the coach that hired me, and I loved the coaches I work with there…so that’s when it hit me that like I think this is what I want to do, and ever since, I’ve been just blessed and lucky.”