2014 Kansas Sports Hall of Fame: Gene Stephenson

Gene Stephenson

Wichita State

Stephenson possesses hall-of-fame credentials as a winner, a pioneer in his sport, a visionary and as a tireless worker. That he accomplished all he did as baseball coach at Wichita State, an unlikely entrant into the national power structure, adds to his legacy.

The story is often told that Stephenson arrived at WSU to find the athletic department didn’t own a baseball.

Anybody can buy a bag of balls.

The real obstacles were more daunting — weather, ambivalence from his own athletic department in the early days and a low-profile conference. The difficulty of the process appealed to Stephenson, who stuck it out at WSU in the program’s infancy with a minimal budget and second-rate practice and game facilities. While his situation improved as the victories piled up, nobody would say things are easy at Wichita State when fighting high-profile schools in power conferences.

“You can’t underestimate the extraordinary accomplishment of that coaching staff,” Gary Ward, the former coach at Oklahoma State, said years ago. “Winning a College World Series in 1989 at Wichita is a heck of a lot more significant than winning five or six at (Southern Cal).”

Stephenson is just starting his hall of fame tour. Last spring, he entered the Wichita Sports Hall of Fame and the College Baseball Hall of Fame. In August, the National Baseball Congress honored his career. On Sunday, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame adds his name. Likely to follow, with the timing depending on their eligibility requirements, are the Shocker Sports Hall of Fame, the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame, the American Baseball Coaches Association and others recognizing his roots in Oklahoma and Missouri.

Stephenson coached Wichita State from 1978 to 2013, when the school fired him. Out of nothing, he built a program that went to seven College World Series and won the school’s lone NCAA title, in 1989. He coached 36 seasons, making 28 appearances in NCAA play and going 1,837-675-3.

Those numbers don’t tell the whole story, for his influence on college baseball goes beyond wins and losses. When he won big at Wichita State, he showed athletic departments in cold-weather climates a blueprint. When WSU built Eck Stadium and filled it with 5,000 fans, it pushed other programs to improve their facilities. He argued for pushing the season into the spring and summer to take advantage of warmer weather and avoid overlap with basketball. He championed the 20-second (between pitches) and 90-second (between innings) clocks to speed up the game and make it more attractive for TV.

“(Stephenson) is one of the people directly responsible for the growth and strength and popularity of college baseball,” said Jana Howser, executive vice president of the College Baseball Hall of Fame, when announcing his induction.

Stephenson makes a point to praise his former players and coaches when a hall of fame calls. In August, about 15 former Shockers joined him on the field at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. More than a dozen made the trip to Lubbock in June for the College Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony.

“We were blessed many times over at Wichita State to have so many good people, good men, play for us and endure difficult times from year to year, “ Stephenson said at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

Paul Suellentrop

This story was originally published October 3, 2014 at 6:58 PM with the headline "2014 Kansas Sports Hall of Fame: Gene Stephenson."