Kevin Smallcomb: Baseball in the blood
Kevin Smallcomb was no itinerant preacher man, riding horseback from town to town delivering the word; nor a zany United Airlines pilot zipping to Tokyo, Hanoi or Hong Kong; nor a railroad porter riding across the country caring for customers needs, or traveling nurse during the pandemic, nor a traveling salesman in the mold of Henry Miller nor a Merchant Marine (like my buddy Joe, frequenting the many ports of call. Nope, Smallcomb was a baseball player and coach who traveled big. He’s one of the people following their dream(s) with much sacrifice of stability for the passion of their cause and excitement awaiting them on the field of play.
One recent interviewee labeled baseball players as the most addicted sportspersons she had ever observed. Smallcomb qualifies. In chatting with the one-time Mendocino College baseball mentor for an hour at a bar-b-que joint on Perkins, he was a non-stop purveyor of baseball stories gathered over his 50 years of playing and coaching in: Santa Rosa, Sacramento CC, Cal State (Sacramento); Hiram Johnson HS, American River College, University of Arkansas, then Alaska Summer Leagues, to Ukiah and Mendo College, then Northern Colorado University in Greely, and then Youngstown State in Ohio, and finally a spell back in Alaska. Smallcomb was attempting to drink a cold one out from under his collapsing green handkerchief and I was adjusting my shifting white burka as it bobbed and weaved with belly laughs astride our time outside.
Very entertaining was this hardly-retired intense rule-enforcing baseball guy. My take-away over and over throughout the conversation was that Smallcomb believes in order and routine and respect and managing and purpose and discipline and organization, and structure. Those lead to wins and self and other respect. Here are a few examples of that, in his words:
“I went to Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa where Russ Dietrick was the coach. He was very organized, having offense and defense practices, not just ‘here’s the balls and play operation.’ I was all North Bay League as a senior at second base.”
“But, at Santa Rosa JC, who won the state championship in 1959; the coach just threw out the balls, and we were known as the bad-news bearcubs. We went 5-35 in 1978-79. It was not a good situation, it wasn’t fun, and I transferred to Sacramento City College, where Jerry Weinstein was coach. Weinstein was precise and clear. He’s probably still one of the best baseball minds in the country, 75 years old and works for the Colorado Rockies organization. We had 19 guys drafted off our roster, with 4 of them going to the major leagues, including RJ (Robert) Reynolds of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Ken Dowell of the Phillies.”
At Sacramento State University, Kevin played baseball for the Hornets, but let the academics slide. Nevertheless, he headed to Hiram Johnson HS as head coach, followed by American River College as an assistant for 5 years. “I thought I was a hot commodity at this point and everyone should be recruiting me. ‘Don’t they know who I am? How many rings do I have to bring out?’ But, even Cosumnes River JC said no to me, because I didn’t meet the minimum qualifications! “
“So, I returned to finish my degree at Sac State and went to University of Arkansas where I got my masters in sports management and was a graduate assistant for baseball. We were in the Southwest Conference Championships several years and went on to the regionals. It was a pretty salty situation. They did it right at Arkansas with coach Norm Debriyn, who has the 14th most wins at 1,161 in NCAA division 1-baseball history. This really laid the foundation for Smallcomb in his later years as the head coach at Northern Colorado University. He scheduled several of the big southern powerhouses for his Greely, Colorado team, beginning in 2002.
Smallcomb traveled to Alaska for summer league, where they won the national championship; but returned to Ukiah with no coaching job, and started fueling helicopters for CAMP and driving forklift for Pepsi. His whole mind set was on coaching baseball. At the local Sizzler one night, he met Lefty Olguin who wanted to talk coaching with him at Mendocino College. Shortly thereafter, AD Dan Drew hired him to coach the Eagles.
“We had a pipeline with LA Harbor High School in San Pedro at that time with the Castaneda brothers (Arturo and Queso), Arch O’sheen from Alaska and we reached the playoffs 5 times in 10 years (1992-2002).”
“We drew some great kids, including Shane Roberts, Kevin West, Matt Belfonti, Damion Bird, Tim Angelini from Cloverdale and Sean Leslie from Willits. My fuel was matriculation to the next level. I wanted these guys, despite how hard it might be on them to go out prepared. We got the reputation as a winner, and kids were arriving from the College of the Redwoods area, Ukiah, and Lake County. In 1996 and 1999 we had great teams. We were playing 100 games a year, with 40 games in Spring, 20 in summer, 40 in the fall. Our kids were more prepared than the others with all that training and game experience. And sometimes you get a kid that thinks they know everything about the game at 17-18 years old….’the next stop iis the 30 man roster for the Giants.’ Bull Lord, it’s a long ways away son. You might be the best guy in Upper lake, but it’s a really big world out there.
My job was to prepare them to matriculate; if you made it through the program and did what you were supposed to do, you got a scholarship somewhere. It might not be UCLA or SC or Cal, but a 4 year school that you would be successful at. Candy Dickenson, the liaison between athletics and academics (academic counselor) was as important as the head coach. Without her, we couldn’t get it done.”
But a greater challenge was on the near horizon for Smallcomb, who inherited the Northern Colorado University Div 2 baseball team with a 6-36 record. Tim Barerra was the girls’ soccer coach back then and is still there after 20 years. Two Ukiah High School girls have played for Barrera at Northern Colorado: Taylor Bray and Kenzie Bray!
“Baseball was about to transition to Division 1, and I had to change the mentality of the team. I was sitting out there on the infield watering the dirt wishing I was back in beautiful Mendocino County, when a player rode in on his bike across the infield into the dugout with a N. Colorado baseball jersey on. I could tell he was from the old regime, as he went into the batting cage taking a bat from a younger kid; swung it for a while and threw it down. Then he proceeds into the locker room and comes out with his spikes on and says to me: ‘I’m your starting center fielder.’
The first year coach: “I haven’t given out any positions yet, especially with a team that went 6-36; and that if he ever rode across the field again with that bike, he’d find it with broken spokes laying in the middle of 6th Avenue and that if he ever took a bat out of the hands of a freshman again, he’d better be respectful in returning it back to him and pick up every ball in the cage first. And wear nothing but flats out here, because we’re gonna run for about 2 weeks straight. Now get your teammates and I’ll meet you down the left field line for introductions.”
The “Klawz” went 3412 that year, the biggest turnaround in history of Ncaa-division 2. Kevin notes that he had recruited some fine players: Hall of Famer Shane Roberts from Mendo College, John Dyson from Alaska and Mendocino College. “I wanted a small squad to recruit big the next year. We had to be really physical, play for me, be on time, and play hard. And do the right thing-period. Play and practice hard. Discipline!
Part of the makeover came in the return bus trip from Mankato State. “We were creating the culture. “I scheduled University of Nebraska, Kansas State, Arizona and Arizona State, Texas and Texas A&M, University of Arkansas. We were stepping way up. When we visited Mankato State in Minnesota of the North Central League, I realized that all the coaches in the region had played at Mankato.
But we went into their place and took 3 out of 4 games. We got beat in the final game, and there is a rule that you can’t condition kids post-game. But the pitchers in the back of the bus were laughing and cutting up. It was a nice bus and the assistant coach went back to settle these guys down. (That was Chris Forbes, now Assistant director of player development of the Rockies). ‘Hey, guys, coach wants you to think about how we could have swept and what that would be like.’ Two minutes later, they’re cutting up again.”
“So, the bus pulled over next to some recently plowed fields in Iowa and I ran them for miles at 12:01 a.m. I explained that I wasn’t over the game 4 loss as they returned to the bus. So, that was ultimately motivational. Mankato later came into our park and we beat them 4 straight!
“The big schools would pay us $10,000 to visit them; (to go get our butts’ kicked). It wore us out by the middle of the season, but we were the only Division 1 team in Colorado and kids were coming in from all over; we got better! There were some notable wins. We swept Texas A&M (think Jason Kipnas at second base) in a doubleheader for the first time in 99 years. The University of Arizona (with Mike Leake-cincinnati, Giants) was 16-0 and number 1 in the nation , and we were 5-17. We were ahead 6-2 against Arizona with Leake at bat and pro umpires patrolling the bases that night. He was a big slugger in those days and pulled two foul ball home runs before being called out on pitches to end it.”
“I stayed at Youngstown State for 5 years after Northern Colorado. Later, my daughter started at SS for Youngstown St. for 3 years after playing for Kelvin Chapman at Mendo College, and my younger daughter played for Kelvin and then volleyball at Youngstown. She’s a local undertaker here now.”
Smallcomb’s last game was for the 2017 Glacier (Alaska) Pilots, where he is in the Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the HOF at Sacramento State University and Mendo College.