Former Fresno State baseball coach Bob Bennett passes away at 86
Former Fresno State baseball coach Bob Bennett has passed
away at the age of 86, his family confirmed.
Bennett is the winningest coach in Fresno State baseball
history. He led the Diamond Dogs for 34 seasons, with 1,302 wins before his
retirement in 2002.
Back on May 20, Todd Bennett, son of Bob, announced on
Facebook that his father's heart had stopped following a procedure. He was put
on a ventilator following the complications.
During his time in the hospital, family members of Bennett
reached out to the public asking them to send videos of well-wishes for the
former Bulldog coach to aid in his recovery. He was able to see the videos
before he passed and responded positively to them.
Bennett became just the 2nd head baseball coach in Fresno
State history when he took over following Pete Beiden's retirement in 1969.
He led the Diamond Dogs to 21 NCAA Regionals, 17 conference
championships and two College World Series appearances in 1988 and 1991.
His #26 was the first number retired at Fresno State and in
2016, the school renamed its baseball stadium "Bob Bennett Stadium at Pete
Beiden Field."
Bob Bennett, one of the pillars of the baseball program at
Fresno State and winningest coaches in NCAA Division I baseball history, passed
away on Sunday.
Bennett had gone into the hospital on May 18 for a heart
procedure, but while recovering the following day his heart stopped, according
to a social media post by his son, Todd. “His heart resumed beating on its own
after about 15 minutes of CPR, and he was placed on a ventilator under heavy
sedation,” he said.
The coach had shown improvement during the week and was
taken off a ventilator.
“I’m honored to have had him as a friend and also as my
coach,” said Eddie Zosky, who played for the Bulldogs from 1987 to ‘89 and had
a five-year career in the major leagues. “He’s going to be missed, not
forgotten, I know that. He’s just a great man. He lived life the right way.
“The way Coach coached I guess was the biggest impact with
me. The way that we practiced and the way that his practices were set up to
make us basically go out and play the game without any fear. Later on, here you
are in the playoffs or the World Series, it’s the ninth inning, the bases are loaded
with two outs and what do you think your heart is doing? It’s racing, right?
You have some adrenaline going, right? I just remember that. I remember being
tired as heck in these drills but getting the job done and then having almost
the same feeling and then the ball gets hit and you get the job done. He set
you up. He kind of set you up for life with failures and what do you do … he
was a huge impact for me, had a huge impact on my life.”
Bennett had a 1,302-759-4 record in 34 seasons with trips to
the College World Series in 1988 and 1991, and guided Fresno State to 17
conference titles before retiring after the 2002 season.
Fresno State renamed its baseball stadium Pete Beiden Field
at Bob Bennett Stadium in 2016.
Beiden coached the Bulldogs from 1948 to 1966, then in 1968
and ‘69. Bennett, who had coached the Bulldogs in 1967 when Beiden took a
one-year sabbatical, took over the program in 1970 and led the program until
his retirement in 2002.
Mike Batesole has been the coach at Fresno State for the
past 18 seasons.
““Rest in peace to the greatest coach our Valley will ever
see, (his) name on the stadium says it all,” Batesole said in a statement
released by Fresno State.
When he retired, Bennett ranked No. 7 in NCAA Division I for
career victories. He was named a conference coach of the year 14 times and the
national coach of the year in 1988 by The Sporting News.
Bennett also was inducted into the Fresno County Athletic Hall
of Fame in 1990, and the ABCA and College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010.
As a player at Fresno State from 1952 to ‘55 under Beiden,
Bennett was All-California Collegiate Athletic Association as a catcher in 1954
and ‘55 as the Bulldogs won conference titles each season. The Bulldogs
competed in the NCAA Tournament three times (1952, ‘54 and ‘55) in Bennett’s
playing career.
But his career was much more than numbers and stats.
Thiessen: Bennett was ‘father figure’
Tim Thiessen, who played for the Bulldogs from 1980 to ‘82,
counted the former Fresno State coach as a second father, imparting lessons
that he later passed along when leading three different high schools to Central
Section championships.
“I love my dad – my dad disciplined me and taught me right
from wrong,” Thiessen said. “I held my dad to a high level and little did I
know that when I got recruited as a walk-on to come to Fresno State, Coach
Bennett was in many ways similar. He expected the most out of his players and
he wanted more than just championships out on the field. He also wanted to
teach every one of his players, including me, how to be a man. Being in his
program was learning about life and learning how to be a good citizen in our
community, a good father, a good husband, and just all the things that went
along with it.
“When I went to Fresno State, I realized whether I was
playing a home game or I was playing on the road when my dad wasn’t there, I
always felt like I had a father figure always with me all the time.
“Coach Bennett had high expectations for his players. He had
high expectations for his programs. There are so many things we learned along
the way as we were going through the program. It caused me to not only see
Coach Bennett as my coach, but more than that I got to see his heart.”
Steve Pearse, the baseball coach at Reedley College, added
his thoughts on Twitter.
“Coach Bennett’s impact on our lives is immeasurable,” he
wrote. “He taught us: discipline, competitiveness, drive, determination,
dignity, humbleness, loyalty, perseverance, accountability, respectfulness and
selfllessness. So in other words he taught us how to be men. His impact on this
community and the sport of College Baseball will always have his fingerprints
on it. He was a pioneer and a visionary that was 25 years ahead of his time.
“There was a way to do things and a Fresno State way of
doing things. The Bulldog way of doing things required more commitment and more
attention to details. Those of us who played or coached with him, we may be the
luckiest people on earth. We love this man dearly. To Mrs. Bennett and the
family, thank you for sharing Coach with us. His legacy will live on. I will
continue to pass the lessons I learned from him on to current and future
baseball players.”
