It’s been nearly a full month since Clemson held a press conference to introduce Erik Bakich as its new head baseball coach.
That happened on June 16. Since then, Bakich has had to work to catch his proverbial breath.
“It’s still a whirlwind,” Bakich told The Clemson Insider this week. “I’m still going 1,000 miles an hour. It hasn’t slowed down one bit, but I wouldn’t trade one second of it. It’s been awesome.”
Over the past four weeks, Bakich said he’s spent the majority of his time on three short-term goals: meeting with his new players, hiring a staff and recruiting.
He’s made some significant headway on the latter two. Bakich brought his top assistant with him from Michigan, Nick Schnabel, to serve as assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator and made some waves within the ACC by hiring Jimmy Belanger away from Florida State to be the Tigers’ pitching coach. He also brought volunteer assistant Griffin Mazur with him from Michigan and has retained Brad Owens as director of baseball operations and Ben Paulsen as director of player development.
Former Clemson coach Jack Leggett will help with the program in some capacity, though Bakich said exactly what that role will be has yet to be determined. And while he said he’s not yet at liberty to announce it, Bakich is zeroing in on another hire to complete his eight-person staff.
“That was critically important,” Bakich said of assembling his staff.
Bakich has also hit the ground running on the recruiting trail, helping the Tigers land some names he’s familiar with from his time at Michigan. Clemson has lost a handful of players to the transfer portal following Monte Lee’s firing, but the Tigers have replaced them with seven verbal commitments in the 2022 and 2023 recruiting cycles since Bakich was hired. All of them are Michigan transfers or former Michigan pledges who have flipped their commitment to Clemson.
As for the Tigers’ current players, meeting with all of them has been more difficult given the timing of the coaching change. Bakich said he had dinner with about nine players during his first week on the job, but many others are scattered throughout the country playing summer ball. Bakich was in the northeastern part of the country today with plans to watch Blake Wright, Cooper Ingle and Caden Grice play in the Cape Cod League later this week.
“Trying to see a lot of (the current players), but I probably won’t meet the majority of them until we have our first team meeting,” Bakich said.
In between all of that, Bakich said he’s been working on save-the-dates next month to meet with high school and travel ball coaches in the area. Bakich is also helping organize an on-campus reunion for Clemson baseball alumni, which he said will be held the weekend of Nov. 19.
“Every alum from the Coach (Bill) Wilhelm, Coach Leggett and Coach Lee eras that can come back and make it, we’ve got our arms open and can’t wait to connect with all of them.
“It’s been awesome. It’s been a really good first month.”
Dear Old Clemson’s first event is July 24. Now there is a new way to support Clemson student-athletes. Come out and meet the freshmen football players at this meet and greet autograph session. If you sign up for certain club levels you get free access to all Dear Old Clemson events. Purchase your tickets today at Dear Old Clemson.
