Bob Bennett obit

Former Fresno State baseball coach Bob Bennett passes away at 86

He was not on the list.

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.”