How Erik Bakich's path to Clemson baseball coach started with promises to a dying mentor 20 years ago
CLEMSON – Two promises were made to the late Keith LeClair.
Both involved Erik Bakich, who was introduced Thursday as Clemson's new baseball coach.
LeClair, 36, had to step down as East Carolina's coach in 2002 because he was dying of ALS - Lou Gehrig's Disease. He had played at Western Carolina under Jack Leggett, who was then at Clemson.
"He said, 'I need you to do me one favor,' " Leggett said. "He was not doing well at the time. I said, 'Anything, Keith. What is it?' He said, 'You've got to take this guy. You've got to take Erik Bakich as a volunteer coach.' I didn't know Erik. But I trusted my friend and I owed him a lot. So, I took Erik."
Bakich was a junior college transfer who played outfield at East Carolina for two years and then independent minor league baseball for two more. He returned to East Carolina to try to become a coach, but it wasn't going to be there.
LeClair died four years later.
"He's the inspiration to start coaching," Bakich said. "There was a promise I made to continue his legacy."
It didn't take long for Leggett to understand why he was asked to mentor Bakich, to let him share the assistants' office with future head coaches in Tim Corbin (Vanderbilt) and Kevin O' Sullivan (Florida). When Corbin left in 2003, he took Bakich and made him recruiting coordinator.
"You don't always know what's in store for a volunteer coach," Leggett said. "But in this case, I could look at Erik and go, 'He's got something special.' It was easy to see that he had something really special going on. ... I really thought he had a great future in coaching. I knew he'd go off and do great things."
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Bakich was a head coach in the ACC, at Maryland, by age 31. After three years there, he spent the past decade at Michigan, winning two Big Ten championships, including this season. When he returned to Doug Kingsmore Stadium on Thursday morning, he did so with a wife and three young children and a six-year contract worth more than $6 million. It was unimaginable even for a hard worker and big dreamer like Bakich.
"I was a 24-year-old volunteer assistant coach who got paid in Gatorade bars and T-shirts," Bakich said. "I had a $200-a-month apartment that had no cable TV, no AC. ... There used to be a Peppinos (pizza) down the street. There was also a $2 movie theater. I was a frequent occupant of the $2 movie theater because I didn't have cable. But I just loved it. I loved to work. I loved to coach. ... I don't have any hobbies now. I didn't have any hobbies then. I didn't have much of a life, to be honest with you."
In Bakich's only season at Clemson, the Tigers went 54-17 and made it to the semifinals of the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
"(Walking back into Doug Kingsmore) was almost like a tidal wave of nostalgia," Bakich said. "... You're first year coaching is like, 'Oh, yeah, we'll win 54 games and be No. 1 in the country and go to Omaha. That's just how you do it.' For me, it was being a sponge and taking it all in. I just will be forever thankful and grateful."
Todd Shanesy covers Clemson athletics for the USA Today network.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson baseball coach Erik Bakich and promises to dying mentor
