MARK WASIKOWSKI EMPHASIZING GRATITUDE AND JOY IN HEAD COACHING ROLE AT OREGON

The Ducks’ baseball coach has turned this program around both on and off the field.

BY MOJO HILL

When Mark Wasikowski became Oregon baseball’s head coach in 2019, he knew something was broken.

Rather than speculate on what the issue was or try to fix a problem he knew nothing about, he was blunt in his first meeting with the team.

“What’s broken? You guys tell me. I haven’t been here,” he recalled saying. “It was a really quiet room. I asked the team though, ‘What’s going wrong here? Because this is a beautiful place. You’ve got a beautiful field. You’ve got a budget, and it’s plenty good enough for it to be good.’”

He was met with silence and confusion from a locker room full of players decked out in all the Oregon paraphernalia you can imagine — Nike shoes, gear, backpacks and everything a Division I athlete expects to be given. But the shiny clothes and expensive shoes couldn’t hide the reality that the Ducks had recently gone 10-19 in Pac-12 play or that they hadn’t finished higher than eighth place since 2015. So Wasikowski didn’t hand them all that gear. Instead, he gave them two plain white T-shirts and a pair of basic running shoes. people that think you guys are spoiled — prove that wrong.”

What’s broken? You guys tell me. I haven’t been here. It was a really quiet room. I asked the team though, ‘What’s going wrong here? Because this is a beautiful place. You’ve got a beautiful field. You’ve got a budget, and it’s plenty good enough for it to be good.’”

He was met with more befuddlement. Some of the players were ticked off that they weren’t getting the equipment they thought they deserved. But Wasikowski had a simple message to the team: “If you want to be here, and you want to be here for the right reasons and play for the school and try to play for the

And still, the team’s first issue every year is a pair of white T-shirts. It helps remind Wasikowski and the team of why they show up to play baseball every day and why they need to work hard to prove their worth.

“It means a lot to us, even though it literally is probably the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen,” Wasikowksi said.

Now in his third full season of coaching Oregon under this “white shirt mentality,” Wasikowski’s leadership has paid dividends, turning this program into a national contender and a force in the Pac-12.

His drive and passion for baseball go back to his playing days, a path that led him to an unexpected career in coaching. After being introduced to the game as a kid, he went on to play for Pepperdine as a third baseman. He played under head coach Andy Lopez, who became one of the most influential mentors in Wasikowski’s life.

“He wasn’t a ‘give you a hug and tell you how wonderful the day is’ kind of coach,” Wasikowski said. “He was as tough as they got… He coached us like we were a gang, and he was in the gang.”

Wasikowski didn’t need to go to Pepperdine. He had multiple scholarship offers, but he instead joined the Waves as a walk-on.

“My father disowned me at the time,” Wasikowski said. “He told me point blank, ‘You’re stupid. You got all these big scholarships. Who’s gonna pay for it?’” to join his staff, and Wasikowski said no.

He insisted he would take out loans, paying for college on his own dime. And so he stayed the course with Pepperdine.

His first job was at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. But 25 minutes into the first day’s training session, he knew he didn’t want to be doing this.

So he called Lopez.

His Pepperdine coach, who he was still in close contact with, recommended he get a second degree. The problem was Wasikowski didn’t have the money, as the loans he took out caught up to him. The next option was to get a teaching credential, but Wasikowski couldn’t get through that before realizing he hated it.

But under Horton’s leadership, the program rose to respectability over the following few years. The Ducks went 40-24 in 2010, then hosted regionals in 2012 and 2013.

So in 2012, Wasikowski accepted Horton’s offer and joined Oregon as an assistant.

Wasikowski’s path stayed on the upswing. After he had a few good years at Oregon, Purdue hired him for his first head coaching gig in 2017. He took a team that had gone 10-44 the year prior and made them an above-.500 squad.

In 2019, the Boilermakers took a step back, going 20-34. At the same time, Horton and the Ducks mutually agreed to part ways after a ninth-place finish in the Pac-12. Naturally, Oregon became interested in Wasikowski for the vacant position. And while he was interested, he wasn’t immediately convinced.

“I wanted to ask Rob [Mullens] what his vision was for baseball at Oregon,” Wasikowski said. “If it was just to play, I wasn’t interested. If it was just to have a program or something like that, I wouldn’t be very interested.”

That’s been Wasikowski’s mantra from the beginning, even looking back at his Pepperdine days: He’s in it to win. He won’t accept being on a team that everyone writes off and expects to lose, one that can’t even get its name pronounced correctly at the banquet dinner.

“If you’re not putting in your best effort, you’re kidding yourself. And you know that you’re kidding yourself,” Wasikowski said. “And if you know you’re kidding yourself, you know you’re not giving everything you can in what you desire to

Wasikowski was announced as the new Oregon head baseball coach in 2019. It required him to move from the Midwest, where he met his wife and was geographically closer to her family, as well as spend less time with his two daughters.

“I knew that I wasn’t gonna be around a lot for them, which hurts,” Wasikowski said. “But at the same point in time, when I was around, they saw how much I care about them and love them. I make sure that even when I’m not around, they’re getting little notes or whatever.”

It was then that the “white shirt mentality” kicked in. Despite an initial interruption because of COVID-19, Wasikowski has seen the team flourish in his tenure here. The Ducks went 39-16 in his first full season at Oregon, hosting a regional for the first time since 2013. They made it to a regional as well in 2022, and are off to a 20-9 start this season.

While Wasikowski didn’t initially plan on being a college baseball coach, there’s nothing he’d rather be doing at this point. He said if the New York Yankees called him asking him to manage their team, he would decline.

“I’m a PE coach that’s getting paid,” he said. “It’s a blessing where I’m at.”