Bucknell loses a legend in Depew
By Sean Ryan
CollegeBaseballInsider.com Co-Founder
@collbaseball
sean@collegebaseballinsider.com
Near
the end of his 31st season leading the Bucknell baseball
program, Gene Depew (left) switched offices with his assistant
Scott Heather, who would take over the Bison after the 2012
season.
On
his last day as head coach, he took one thing from the office:
a big chair shaped like a glove, the chair he offered recruits
as he made his best pitch to lure them to Bucknell.
“He
left everything in there for me,” Heather said. “He told me,
‘I left it in there, keep whatever you want and throw out
whatever you don’t want.’ At first, I thought he didn’t want
to clean it all up. As I went through it, I realized he was
showing me how he built the program. He kept everything. I
spent two days looking through everything…classic Gene, he was
able to guide me without making me realize he was even doing
it along the way.
“I
owe him everything.”
Many
in the Bucknell community share that sentiment.
Depew, who coached football and baseball over 40 years at his
alma mater, passed away Monday morning at the age of 66,
leaving a lasting legacy as a coach, mentor, friend and family
man who simply did things the right way.
Navy
coach Paul Kostacopoulos said, “He was just a gentleman.”
Lehigh coach Sean Leary offered, “He was what the Patriot
League is all about; he was an institution.” Lafayette coach
Joe Kinney reminisced, “I’m honored to compete against him as
a player and a coach.”
Depew starred in football before graduating from Bucknell in
1971. He began an incredible coaching run that saw him serve
as an assistant football coach from 1972-92, assistant
baseball coach from 1974-81 and head baseball coach from
1982-2012.
That’s right, he still coached football on the side 10 years
after became the head baseball coach.
Depew’s baseball teams won 591 games and made five trips to
the NCAA Tournament, none more thrilling than in 2008, when
the Bison stunned No. 4 national seed Florida State 7-0 behind
Mathew Wilson’s complete-game gem on the first day of the
tourney.
That
Friday night, Depew told CollegeBaseballInsider.com, “To be
able to come in front of this kind of crowd and do what we
did, it’s a momentous occasion for us.”
“The
Florida State game was probably the biggest win of the 591 he
ended up with,” Heather said.
Brian Hirschberg, Drew University’s baseball coach who played
at Bucknell under Depew added: “It put Bucknell Baseball on
the map…I’m sure Coach Depew had 1,000 people who wanted to
talk to him, and I’m pretty sure he got back to every single
person.”
***
There’s a lot of people wasting their lives sleeping right now.
Bison
baseball players over the past three decades heard this often
at the start of early-morning practices or workouts. According
to Hirschberg, it was one of Depew’s favorite lines.
And
it was effective, setting the tone for a workmanlike baseball
team in a workmanlike baseball conference devoid of
scholarship players.
Three years after leaving football to put all his effort into
baseball, the Bison slipped past Navy in the Patriot League
Championship Series in 1996 for the program’s first trip to
the NCAA Tournament. Depew then guided Bucknell to NCAA trips
in 2001, 2003, 2008 and 2010.
“When he was promoted to just the full time baseball coach,
Bucknell’s fortunes changed dramatically,” Kinney said.
In
2004 – a year removed from an NCAA tourney appearance – the
Bison were underperforming. According to Hirschberg, Depew was
never big on yelling or screaming at his players, but the
players knew their play was wearing on him.
“At
no point did he come down on us,” said Hirschberg, then a
senior who had blasted a mammoth shot over the University of
Texas’ Disch-Falk Field’s center-field monster the year
before.
In
fact, Hirschberg said Depew went to the seniors and asked,
“What do you need from me?”
“Coach Depew was so good at understanding his team and
understanding the personnel that he had,” Hirschberg said. “He
was really good at knowing the pulse of his team.”
Added Heather: “He’s probably the most consistent man I’ve
ever been around. You always knew what to expect.
“His
biggest asset is that he set up the program for our players to
be able to exceed both academically and athletically at the
highest level. He kept the balance there to allow our guys to
be successful day in and day out.”
His
teams were known for having a few top-tier arms. Coaches
around the Patriot League this week threw around words like
“laid-back,” “loose” and “prepared.”
“They were courageous,” Kostacopoulos said. “His kids played
in the moment. He had a way of getting his kids to play when
they needed to play. Those kids never played tight; nothing
bothered them.”
Kinney added, “He treated his kids with respect and got that
in return I am sure.”
***
In
2006, Lehigh won the Patriot League title and headed to
Charlottesville, Va., for its first NCAA Tournament
appearance.
The
day of the Mountain Hawks’ first game against Virginia, Leary
got a phone call from Depew, who said “you don’t have to
listen to me” and proceeded to offer Leary ideas on how to
prepare and encourage him to get his players to relax.
Two
years ago, Lehigh and Bucknell met at Depew Field for the
Patriot League championship. As game time approached, a
visitor entered the Lehigh dugout with a big hello and warm
greeting.
“It
didn’t seem strange for either one of us,” Leary said of Depew
stopping by to wish Leary luck.
Last
year at the Patriot League Championship in Annapolis, Depew
casually dropped by Navy’s dugout before the Midshipmen were
set to play, not Bucknell, but Lehigh.
“He
just wanted to come by and say good luck,” Kostacopoulos said.
“He was happy for people when they had success.”
As
Kinney described him, Depew was a caring person.
He
was the kind of guy who looked out for people, as he did when
Kostacopoulos was a young coach at Maine who arrived for a
coaches’ clinic in Omaha at the College World Series only to
find he wasn’t on the hotel’s rooming list and didn’t know
many coaches there. “He’s with me,” the Navy coach remembers.
And
he was the kind of guy who could command a room, as he did
year after year at the Best of Virginia summer camp in what
Kinney described as “the best card trick I’ve ever seen in my
life.” Toward the end of night, Depew would dive into a
20-minute performance that mixed storytelling with card trick,
capturing everyone in the room with the story of “Johnny the
Bellhop.” Kinney said appreciatively, “That’s probably going
to be my most lasting memory.”
Forty years of coaching. Memories made. Lives touched.
And
little wasted time sleeping.
Bucknell has lost a legend, one whose success on the field is
trumped only by his kindness off of it.