On Thursday afternoon, Virginia Tech Director of Athletics Whit Babcock (left) introduced new Hokie baseball coach John Szefc at a news conference held on the fourth floor at Lane Stadium.
A room filled with departmental staff members, donors and those from various media outlets on Thursday got to meet the man tasked with rebuilding the Hokies’ baseball program.
John Szefc inherits a rebuilding situation, as the Hokies struggled the past four seasons, making the ACC tournament just once in that span and never recording a winning season. This past spring, Tech went 23-32, with a 9-21 mark in ACC play.
Yet Szefc specializes in rebuilding situations. He took Marist College, a small school in New York, to four NCAA regionals, and as the head coach at Maryland for the past five seasons, he guided the Terrapins to a 180-122 record and three NCAA appearances.
Szefc received an array of questions at Thursday’s news conference, including his reasons for taking the Tech job, his coaching philosophy, the importance of a renovated English Field at Union Park, and recruiting in the state of Virginia. He took some time beforehand, though, to answer about his unique career path, which included working as an assistant after seven seasons as a head coach and his brief 10-month stint in the private sector.
Question- Why did you decide to get into coaching after your playing days at Drexel ended?
JS: “I finished up playing in the spring of 1989, and I had to finish up one semester of school to graduate. I was at Drexel at the time, and they’ve since dropped baseball. They don’t have it any more. They hired a new coach, and he didn’t have any assistant coaches. He called me and asked me if I was interested in helping because he knew I had to come back to school anyway and graduate. I said, ‘Yeah.’ I didn’t have any other plans, so I did it.”
Then you moved on and got the Maryland job. What did those 10 years as an assistant do for your career?
JS: “It gave me a lot of experience. It helped me to work for three different programs in baseball places. When I came to an ACC program at the time that ultimately became a Big Ten program … the experiences in recruiting and the relationships that I had built with coaches and other people along the way helped me as I went back to being a head coach.
“I went a little different route than what some other people go. As I look back at it, the 10 years really helped prepare me and Maryland really helped me, I think, for building this. I think it’s been a gradual, one-step-at-a-time thing, where one thing led to another.”
Question – What has the Maryland job taught you that will help you as you set about to rebuilding the Tech program?
JS: “When I came back to being a head coach, the one thing that the Maryland experience taught me was patience. Right about the time I went to Maryland was when you went from recruiting one class at a time to recruiting three. Everything sped up dramatically – social media, the whole perfect game process of having tournaments for freshmen in high school, all that. The high school/college baseball culture sped up for me around 2011-12. Everyone is making decision quickly. It’s a complete sprint, and you have to join in, but you can join in with two feet or one. You can’t get swept way, though.
“At Maryland, it taught me to participate in the sprint, but know when to pull back. For me, the most success college baseball players and college baseball families are the ones that have patience. They understand it’s a process. I got a lot of that from working there.”
The first coach in Maryland history to ever take the Terrapins to an NCAA Super Regional, Szefc accomplished the feat twice in 2014 and 2015 as he guided the program to the first two 40-win seasons in school history and claimed Maryland’s first two NCAA Regional crowns. Maryland achieved a final No. 14 ranking both seasons, the highest finishes in school history. He guided the Terrapins to the ACC Tournament final for the first time in 38 years in 2014 and then took Maryland to the Big Ten tournament final in the school’s initial season in that conference, winning a program-best 42 games in 2015.
“I’m thrilled, humbled and honored to begin this new challenge at Virginia Tech,” Szefc said. “As an opposing coach, I always enjoyed our visits to Virginia Tech and appreciated the beauty of the campus and the Blacksburg community. Our family is beyond excited to call Blacksburg our new home. I appreciate the trust and confidence that Dr. Sands, Whit, John (Ballein) and everyone at Virginia Tech is placing in me.
“The opportunity to return to the ACC and have our team play in an amazing baseball facility simply added to the appeal of coaching the Hokies,” Szefc continued. “I understand and embrace the expectations that come with this leadership position. I can’t wait to meet the team and get to work. Go Hokies!”
Szefc has coached 97 players that have been drafted or signed professional contracts since 1997, including six selected in the 2017 MLB draft. Over the last five drafts, 25 of his players have been selected, including the 45th pick of the 2014 draft Jake Stinnett, the highest pick of a Maryland player in almost a decade. He has also helped develop 23 All-Americans, including 10 of the 20 players in Maryland history to earn that distinction.
— Courtesy of VT Athletics
