Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 28, 1995 TAG: 9505300082
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Pioneers wear pink shirts because, more than 20 years ago, Don Schaly decided that's what color they'd wear.
So what if they ``thought it was terrible then,'' the coach remembers, and only slightly less embarrassing than Schaly playing a tape of ``The Pink Panther'' theme song to introduce what some thought was an off-color joke?
They wore them. Still do. The Pioneers - then and now - know who's in charge. Schaly isn't just the biggest man on campus. He's Mr. Marietta. His program unquestionably is bigger than the city of 16,000.
Schaly has three NCAA Division III baseball titles and five runner-up finishes. Marietta's Pioneer Park, all but built by Schaly, must be the best Division III on-campus stadium in the nation.
Sure, others may have lights, but how many have a pressbox organist for home games?
As for support, a large contingent of vocal Marietta supporters at Salem Municipal Field wouldn't be a surprise today for the Pioneers' second date at the rained-on 20th Division III World Series, which was postponed Saturday.
When Marietta made its week-long spring trip to Panama City, Fla., in March, 175 fans followed.
``A lot of that is coach Schaly,'' Marietta right fielder and co-captain Jason Gandee said. ``He's the constant, more than 30 years. He has a lot of respect, and he's earned it.''
For the 19th straight year, the Pioneers (46-7) have at least 36 wins in a season. With Thursday's first-round Series win, Schaly tied Virginia Tech's Chuck Hartman for 10th place on the all-time NCAA baseball coaching victories list, with 1,103. They're tied for fifth among active coaches.
Schaly's 32nd year as the Pioneers' boss hasn't been much different from the 22nd or 12th. The trademarks of his program are discipline, class and tradition.
The Pioneers don't look much different than they did in 1969, when current MC Board of Trustees member Kent Tekulve was pitching for Schaly en route to the Salem Pirates and the majors.
The uniforms are the same. Marietta has been a small-college dynasty. Appropriately, they dress like the New York Yankees.
The home uniforms are white, with navy blue pinstripes and no trim. The MC crest on the uniform chest and dark blue cap is of the same style as the Yanks' NY.
``I'm not a Yankees' fan,'' Schaly said Friday at Municipal Field. ``I just liked the uniform, so that's what we wore. It was so classy.''
And so traditional. One of the phrases you hear around Schaly's program is ``four fingers.'' That's not a reference to the number of Schaly's national coach of the year awards.
``You wear the uniform right, he always says,'' Gandee explained. ``Four fingers of white [sanitary hose] showing under the stirrup. And four fingers of blue showing from the bottom of the pants to the top of the white sock.''
Schaly just isn't from the old school. He's from the same one he attended. A native of western Pennsylvania who loved to watch the Pirates play at Forbes Field, Schaly's Marietta playing days in football and baseball were curtailed by injury.
After getting a master's degree at Penn State, he returned to his alma mater in 1963 as a football assistant and head baseball coach. Three times he was offered the head football job.
No, no, no. He built the baseball program the way he wanted. ``When we first got there, no one knew Marietta was playing baseball,'' Schaly said.
That's a strike. In the past 32 years, Marietta has more than 1,100 victories. In the first 73 seasons, the Pioneers had 265.
Schaly has one of those baseball faces, too. It's lined and pocketed and tanned and even droopy in spots, not unlike an old glove that has warmly weathered many seasons.
Schaly said baseball never has been his job. It's his life. He's 57 and he may be rounding third, but how soon he's heading for the retirement home, he doesn't know.
Schaly, wife Sue, and their four sons - all of whom work in college baseball, too - often spent vacations pulling weeds and grooming bullpen mounds at Pioneer Park.
``Marietta is a special place,'' he said. ``Why did I stay? I've been accused of working for the chamber of commerce, but the answer is no other answer than the people.
``I knew 25 years ago I'd die in Marietta. I wasn't sure in year one or two I would stay, but by the seventh year, I did.''
As for those pink shirts, well, that's a tradition that all came out in the wash one day.
More than two decades ago, Schaly tired of his team losing practice wear when it was cleaned and sorted with the white clothes from other Marietta teams.
So, Schaly dyed his whites blue. That washed out, and became mixed up with the new grays the school had then purchased for its other teams. So, Schaly dyed whites red. Of course, they turned pink.
Now, he just buys pink T-shirts for the Pioneers. Who says all tradition has to be conventional?
``He's a perfectionist,'' Gandee said of his coach. ``Maybe the toughest thing is that he sees bad things that maybe you don't necessarily think are bad. The positive is that he's hard on you, and you get better and better.''
That's why the Pioneers' program is in the pink.
by CNB