re: CWS throwback question--Wichita State in the 90's

My wife’s uncle is the WSU all time stolen base leader, a 2 time All American, and led the NCAA in hits in 1991. He was a local kid. Two of my high school baseball coaches played at WSU and then in the majors. They were both STL guys. Until about 2007, Gene didn’t miss on regional kids from midwestern towns who were great players. You’d get a kid from Independence, MO or Sand Springs, OK that would turn out to be a complete stud. Then mix in some good Wichita boys as well and that’s a recipe for good baseball.

Plus WSU had top notch facilities until about 2005 as well. The facilities are still impressive, but baseball is different now.

Crazy to think they kept their run going through the late 90s into the mid 2000s. They just couldn’t get passed the supers. I remember FSU and UC Irvine beating them both in recent years. I think they won game 1 in both those supers. One of the coolest sports moments I was at live was WSU beating Arizona with a walk off double in a regional around 2005 to play UCI. I think there was 10,000 people there. The support was awesome Gene’s whole tenure.

I went to Gene Stephenson baseball camp for years growing up. Would wear LSU stuff. He always gave me shite. My mom used to watch Brent Kemnitz kids. I had the 5 Advocate posters framed in my room. I walked in one night and he was drunk reading them. He said thanks for making me remember the 2 worst days of my baseball career. I still see him on occasion. We laugh about it.