UConn pitcher all in for last call
College careers have expiration dates.
All reach that point where — well, you may not have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
Garrett Coe, pitcher and co-captain for the Huskies, who begin the 2024 college baseball season Feb. 16 at South Florida, is well acquainted with “closing time.” For a couple of seasons he juggled academics, pitching and working as a bouncer at Ted’s, the popular tavern near the UConn campus.
“I loved everyone there, loved working with those guys and the bartenders,” Coe said. “It was nice little, like, side family. This is my main family here.”
So before UConn’s practices began Coe walked into Ted’s and gave his resignation.
“They completely understood when I said the season was coming and I really wanted to lock in and focus,” he said.
Coe, listed at 6-foot-6,
267 pounds, with one more ‘T’ and no ‘L’ so as not to be confused with Yankees’ Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole, is a mountain of a kid when he takes the mound for UConn. But despite his size he has had to work on increasing his velocity.
An injury during his time at Gunnery School (now Frederick Gunn School) in Washington, Conn., kept Coe from getting a lot of college offers, but UConn’s coaches liked his competitiveness and offered a roster spot as a walk-on. He committed near the end of his senior year.
When coach Jim Penders saw Coe on campus the first time, he was in the cramped “barn,” where pitchers usually just throw. But Coe was visualizing runners, practicing slide-step deliveries and other ways to hold them close to the bag.
Penders knew he had someone who was always “thinking the game.”
Coe redshirted his freshman season but has been one of the Huskies most durable, versatile and reliable pitchers since, earning partial scholarship money. A lefty, Coe is 8-4 with a
3.33 ERA in 46 games, five starts, five saves and 65 hits allowed in 83 ⅔ innings.
“Garrett’s special talent is his competitiveness,” pitching coach Josh MacDonald said. “He isn’t a bombastic competitor, but a resilient one. The moment has never been too big for him, and his teammates appreciate his competitiveness.”
The UConn players elected Coe, from the Lakeside section of Litchfield, and catcher Ryan Hyde, from Berlin, as co-captains for this season. Coe may start on one of the weekend slots, or could be a reliever who pitches multiple innings for the Huskies this season.
During the double-elimination Big East and NCAA Regional tournaments that can stretch a staff, Coe has been invaluable.
Penders has had a lot of players from different walks of life, but Coe is the first bouncer he’s coached and, oddly enough, Coe has proved ideal for both roles.
“If he wasn’t as mature as he is, I don’t know if I would have been excited about him doing that job,” Penders said.
“But I knew he could handle himself, and he has very good people skills. He knows how to de-escalate, and that’s really important in that job. I trust him.”
The roles overlap, Penders said, where Coe is able to bridge gaps between teammates, or between players and coaches. He’s a natural peacemaker.
Coe said he never had an unpleasant situation in his side job at Ted’s. (To which I must say such places have evidently changed since I was in college.)
“When I say I’m a bouncer, everybody is expecting me to be straight out of ‘Road House,’ ” Coe said. “College kids are pretty low temperament. People gotta leave when people gotta leave.”
For most of his time Coe was able to compartmentalize. But when he beat Seton Hall at Elliot Ballpark on $2 beer night, drawing a lot of first-time attendees, then worked at Ted’s the next day, any cover he had was blown.
In any event, Coe’s bouncer days are over. He has one season left at UConn, one more shot to help the Huskies reach that elusive goal, the College World Series, and he is all in on making it special.
“This team’s culture, which people might not understand it because it’s rare in college baseball, is that what you see is what it is,” Coe said, looking out from the dugout on a cold, damp first day of February.
“There is no façade over these guys. We have fun. There is never any complaining.
“Coach Penders has a way of putting it that every guy admires: ‘We’re living in the toy department of life.’ There are kids here who go to class at 9 a.m., don’t finish until 5 p.m., and then maybe go to work. I get to go to baseball practice, so I’m so thankful for the opportunity to come out here and live in the toy department of life. It’s amazing.”
Doing ‘Phee things for USA Basketball
Former UConn standout Napheesa Collier, who had a monster WNBA season for Minnesota (21.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists per game) is at USA Basketball’s minicamp this weekend in Brooklyn. Her coach with the Lynx, Cheryl Reeve, is head coach for the Olympics, which start in late July in Paris.
“Phee does what ‘Phee does, right?” Reeve said “Her simplicity of playing the game of basketball, her movements, whether she’s screening or cutting (away from) the ball, her activity, her length defensively.
“She’s a high IQ basketball player. She’s easy to play with. I think that’s one of the greatest things you could say about a basketball player.”
Collier, 27, who made the Olympic team for Tokyo in 2021, took a year off to have her baby. She and her husband, Alex Bazzell, welcomed their daughter, Mila Sarah, into the world in October 2022.
“It feels really good to be back with USA,” Collier said. “I hadn’t been with them for a long time, since my pregnancy, so it’s great to be back.
“Playing with 18 of the best players in the world, it’s so fun. We play against them every summer, so to have them on the same team, going for the same goal, the Olympic medal, having U.S.A across your chest, it’s such a rush.”
Former Newington AD Peter Cimini: Dinner’s on him
Last fall Cardinal Hayes High in The Bronx won its state Class AAA football championship, the first New York City school to do it.
One of it’s distinguished alums, Peter Cimini, known around here as longtime curriculum coordinator, football coach and AD at Newington High, stepped up with the plates.
Cimini, 91, who was Cardinal Hayes’ football captain in 1952, asked the school what he could do to honor the team, which had to play all its games on the road in 2023 as its home field was unplayable. It was decided he would help sponsor the upcoming banquet for the champs.
“I’ve long felt that Hayes had a dramatic impact on my life, and I’m pleased to help honor these young men and be a small part of the tradition that has shaped the lives of so many young men over the years,” Cimini said. “As the only person in my family to go to college, the trajectory of my life was changed because of Cardinal Hayes and the great life lessons I learned while a student-athlete there and are still with me today.”
Cimini still has a game ball from 1951 and has been a prolific novelist since his retirement in 1996.
Sunday short takes
◼ On Wednesday Huffman High in Birmingham, Ala., will retire the jersey of alum and former UConn men’s basketball star Stanley “Sticks” Robinson, who died suddenly at age 32 in July 2020. Robinson was loved around here.
◼ New Yard Goats manager Bobby Meacham, who will be introduced this week, played for the Yankees during some of the craziest times of George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin. He must have some wild stories.
◼ Former UConn women’s basketball standout Wendy Davis got her 300th career win with Saint Joseph’s defeat of Emmanuel in mid-January, a sweet victory ending a 31-game losing streak against that opponent.
Davis, who had winning records at Western New England and Trinity before coming to USJ, has had the program on a steady climb from a 3-22 first season in 2018-19. This season Saint Joe’s is 17-3, 8-1 in the GNAC.
◼ Seriously, high-profile spectators have been shown in excess on telecasts for as long as sports has been on TV. Taylor Swift isn’t the first, won’t be the last. Why should this take away from anyone’s enjoyment of a game?
◼ ”The Featherweight,” the movie about Hartford boxing legend Willie Pep, was shown recently at The Bushnell and will be in theaters and available for streaming at a later date. Former Courant sports editor and columnist Bill Lee is a character in the film, played by Australian actor Michael Siberry, who has a long list of TV and movie credits.
In playing sportswriters on the big screen, Walter Matthau (Oscar Madison, “The Odd Couple,” 1968), M. Emmett Walsh (Dickie Dunn, “Slap Shot,” 1977) and Robert Duvall (Max Mercy, “The Natural,” 1984) set the bar awfully high.
◼ The play Lombardi, about Vince, of course, will be performed Monday at Westport Country Playhouse at 7 p.m., part of the theater’s Script In Hand play-reading series. Having seen the play performed in New York years ago, with SCSU’s and “The Wonder Years” Dan Lauria perfectly cast in the title role, I’d recommend it.
◼ Doc Rivers’ arrival as Bucks coach may not be a good thing for UConn’s Andre Jackson Jr. Rivers is expected give more minutes to veterans; in his first two games, both losses, by the way, Jackson did not get off the bench.
Last word
It’s always June in January for one former UConn coach. Steve Spagnuolo, a Huskies assistant from 1987-91, including his first chance to be defensive coordinator, still does his best work this time of year.
His game plan against the Ravens got a lot of attention when the Chiefs won the AFC championship on the road last week. Now Spags, 64, will be trying to win his fourth Super Bowl, third with the Chiefs.
Speaking of game plans, his one for Super Bowl XLII, where the Giants took down the previously unbeaten Patriots in 2008, was pretty Canton-worthy. Don’t know if he’ll get another chance to be a head coach, but if they put guys in the Hall of Fame solely on the basis of their work as coordinators. Spagnuolo’s resume would push him to the front of the line.