Although Ohio’s season has been anything but perfect and ended a couple days before the Bobcats would have liked, fellow Post staffer Nick Robbe and I learned a lot during our long days and late nights at Bob Wren Stadium.
Some of the more memorable moments didn’t come from base hits or “Bobcat Blasts”, as home runs are affectionately referred to at Ohio, but from the conversation about those very occurrences.
In no particular order, here’s a list of “Carbone Quotes” that Ohio skipper Joe Carbone rattled off throughout the season.
I think there’s a couple beauties buried below. Many of them didn’t make our print edition, being that they were too in-depth, off-the-wall or downright zany.
“You never win as many games as you want to win. You never win as many championships as you want to win. But I still feel that the greatest thing about coaching is the relationships you make, you foster, you have with your former coaches, former managers and former players. With that being said, there’s more to coaching than just winning and losing.” — Joe Carbone
On Bob Wren: “I went to a baseball camp when I was 16 and he taught me more in that week than I had learned in my entire life about baseball. So I knew if I wanted to be a ballplayer, this guy could help me become a better ballplayer. And I liked him as a person. He was passionate about coaching and passionate about young people.”
“I’ve taken him deer hunting back home and if we had a vote for mayor, half the town would vote for him. They just loved him. He’s just that kind of guy. I hope I’ve learned from him how to do that. I think I did a little bit.”
“I don’t know if there are any comparisons between us. If there are, I’m privileged and honored, because at the time, he was the best college coach in the country, if you talked to a lot of people. Not just in wins and losses, but teaching the game of baseball and getting the most out of players.”
“Learning from Coach Wren, I had five phone calls (the Sunday following his final home game) from coach friends that I have across the country that knew yesterday was my last game. They said some nice things to me, as far as, ‘Every time we played Ohio University, your guys played with intensity, your guys played with integrity, you showed integrity, it’s what college is baseball is all about.”
On coaching friendships: “I’ve met every college head coach in the country and I’m friends with 98 percent of them. I have always marveled at how he could keep a conversation and talk to someone and talk to them, get to know them and how they’re doing.”
On his legacy at Ohio: “I remember Bill Toadvine, when we were raising money for the stadium, he and I were talking to everyone under the sun trying to garner some funds so we could have a better place to play, which in turn would make the players better and you could get better players, and then we got the lights and every year we were getting something and adding on … And we walked in here one day and Bill said, ‘Can you believe how much you’ve done in 10 years?’ I said, ‘Bill, it’s not how much I’ve done, I appreciate that.’ He looked around and started naming all the different things we had and raised money for … and it was very gratifying. I said, ‘At least we’re doing something.’ ”
On the less noticed aspects of coaching: “It’s not easy making 35 guys go to class all the time. It’s not easy making sure they study. It’s not easy letting them know they’re not doing the right thing. It’s not easy to challenge them socially. It’s not easy to challenge them in what they’re not doing, baseball-wise because it’s confrontation. They’re not used to confrontation and being told they’re not the greatest and need to make an adjustment.”
“Every day in practice, I watch the guys and how they perform. So what I see in practice determines, when the game comes, who gets to play if there’s an opportunity. I know who’s in that batting cage every day before practice because I walk in and look. So I know who the workers are. I know who the guys are who want to get better. That doesn’t have anything to do with who plays, but that does affect who I want to go to war with.”
On life, post-OU: “My wife’s real worried about how I’m going to be and how I’m going to act, but I feel I’ve always reacted really well to everything. I’ve always looked like, ‘These are the pluses, these are the minuses and this is the decision I’m going to make.’ That’s one thing I think that being a coach helps with — making life decisions. You look at it objectively, you make a decision and you move on with it. Don’t look back, it’s too late to look back. That’s what’s called “experience”. It’s the greatest teacher.”
On newspaper reportage (my personal favorite): “If you go to the newspaper and you’re going to become a reporter, you have to show you have the ability to write and people want to read what you have to write and if you don’t, they’re going to find somebody to take your place.”
It didn’t take me very many interviews to realize that Carbone doesn’t like to talk about himself very often.
But when I called up his family, former players and closest friends, they were willing to talk for hours on end about the impact Carbone had on their lives.
Here are some excerpts from my conversations:
Ron Morrison, college roommate:
“He was a wonderful friend and a very compassionate person. He’d do anything for you as a friend and was a very likable and genuine person. There were times we couldn’t put a couple bucks together, but when we did we’d go to Pizza Hut and share some things about the day.”
“We would always remind one another that two wrongs don’t make a right. We’d always bring that back up, even in our social life. He always had that reminder that we were representing that university.”
“My junior year he said something to me: ‘Wanna go to a wedding back home? We went to this Italian wedding. It was a ton of fun with Joe because of the times we had. You could tell he was well liked back home. We ate a five-course meal for what seemed like all day.”
“The thing that struck me right away were that Joe’s expectations about himself and people. He had the expectation that people would always be on time, be respectful and responsible. You start to want to be like him, which is a reason why coach Wren picked him to be a captain.”
Josh Sorge, former player:
“I think its kind of sad to see him go because his name is synonymous with Ohio baseball. When you say Ohio baseball, you think Joe Carbone.”
“The guys are different at those schools. Looking back at the OU guys, we were more invested, more in tune with the tradition and each other. There was so much more camaraderie w the teams I was a part of than what I saw at other schools. That starts at the top with guys like coach Carbone. He made sure we knew who came before us and knew we had the responsibility to the guys who came before us to work hard. It’s going to be hard not to see him out there.”
“I still coach at Strongville and I catch myself on a daily basis where I have that out of body experience where I catch myself thinking, ‘Man, I sound like Carbone.’
I didn’t see this until I started coaching, but he is so sincere and has taught players to be better people. He uses baseball as a vehicle to make you a better person.”
“Unfortunately, when you play for a guy like that, you don’t quite get it. You almost need to step away for the program for a year and realize, ‘Hey, he knew what the hell he was talking about.’ ”
“How many families have been formed because you had the opportunity to play for coach Carbone? If he weren’t here, the world would have turned out a lot different for us. I met Dana Ferraro (his wife) freshman year, and started dating in the spring of 1992. Like I said, if I don’t play ball at OU, I don’t go to OU. There’s a lot of stories like that.”
“He hasn’t just perfected a lot of ballplayers, he’s perfected a lot of families. I have three beautiful kids and it wouldn’t be the same without Joe.”
Sarah Carbone, Joe’s daughter:
“He never had a son to throw the baseball with so he did it with us daughters. No matter what sport we played, he was always there. He was never a yeller, but I think as a whole, that hard work ethic was always there because of that.”
“If we’re going to do something, we were going to do it 100%. I think that’s a main take that we got from it.”
“I wish I would have listened to him more, because I think when you’re growing up you get tired of listening to him. My senior year of softball we used to go to the batting cages at 9:00 p.m., and that was when I realized that he really knew what he was talking about.”
“We would always plan our vacations around Dad’s recruiting schedule. Whether it was going someplace fun on a trip with him or being, ‘Alright, we can only go on vacation during the month of August.’ We always seemed to go to a ballpark no matter where we were, what city we were in.”
“I don’t think you’ll find a bigger Bobcat than him. The reason is that he played here and its his alma mater, even coming back and living a big portion of his career and having his daughters there… He wouldn’t stay at a university that long if you didn’t believe in the university. I think that plays a huge part in his legacy. That’s the one thing in tis day and age that coaches are missing is that pride. This was his home and his whole life and that’s why it was 24 years. He did all these things that were not in his job description. He made the baseball program a better place.”
Cristy Carbone, Joe’s daughter:
“As a former player and current coach and OU grad, I think that says so much about his passion and loyalty for Ohio University athletics. I’d say even leaving behind legacies about having Bob Wren getting a stadium named after him and having Bill Toadvine getting that respect is extremely important.”
“He wears Ohio University shirts on vacation on purpose so people come up and talk to him. He’ll spend two hours talking to a stranger and Sarah and I will be like, ‘Dad, you came here to hang out with us.’ ”
John Obers, Cristy’s husband:
“It’s been great. He’s always been supportive and everything in me joining the family. It’s funny just doing personal things. It’s funny how connected he is. We’ll just go to a game, go to people, leave for an inning, and go to the bullpen. It’s been fun to see how many contact him.”
“He takes care of his family and looks out for everybody and is very appreciative of his community.”
Pat Carbone, Joe’s wife:
“There’s so many stories. Probably the College World Series would be the top one. The fact that this was the first team to go to Omaha… It was the first time the guys had been on a plane. It was a first for everything for so many of them on the team. That was the year of the KSU riots, so it was so different. They were on a trip, when they came back into Athens the police told them they had only so much time to get their things out of the dorm. They left and went to practice.”
“I think he made the right choice being here for 24 years. It’s going to be very tough for him to step away. He would coach until 80 if he can.”
“I have to admit that I’ve had second thoughts about (his retirement.) I’ve had many sleepless nights debating about it.”
“He’s pretty tough on the ballplayers. I think he’s fair but he’s always a teacher even when they’re on the field. He’s always doing something to teach.”
“I think he still has the love for the game. He still has the same love for the young people. What has changed over the years is how competitive recruiting has become. He’s not a computer savvy guy. He’s got an iPhone, but there’s so much more… Its’ gotten so much more complicated where things have changed at the university.”
