‘Relationships are everything’: WSU baseball’s Kemnitz on Shocker Hall of Fame honor
Brent Kemnitz is credited as being the winningest pitching coach in Division I baseball history, someone who has been to seven College World Series, won a national championship and coached 17 big-leaguers.
His 38-year run as Wichita State baseball team’s pitching coach was recognized during halftime of the Shockers’ 72-57 men’s basketball win over SMU when Kemnitz was inducted into the Shocker Sports Hall of Fame in a 2022 class that included volleyball standout Chelsey Feekin, legendary bowling coach Gordon Vadakin and track and field All-Americans Aliphine Tuliamuk and Hunter Veith.
For nearly four decades, Kemnitz was the right-hand man to head coach Gene Stephenson as the two turned a cold-weather program in Wichita, Kansas into a national powerhouse.
The highlights of such a storied career come flashing back when Kemnitz reflects on his past life, but the part that he cherishes the most? The relationships.
“Relationships are everything to me,” said Kemnitz, who transitioned to work for the WSU athletic department for the past six years since retiring in 2016. “At the end of the day, I don’t care what you do, it’s about people. I know we won it all in ‘89 and I can remember all the trips to Omaha and the feeling of a packed regionals at Eck Stadium, but the thing that stays with you forever is relationships. Those are just priceless memories, the people you get to know along the way and you build these life-long friendships.”
Kemnitz came to WSU in the fall of 1978 as a 21-year-old native in awe of Stephenson, who was well-known in the Oklahoma baseball world as the assistant at OU who left to restart the program in Wichita. Kemnitz was a small-town kid from Perry, Oklahoma who had just wrapped up a baseball career at Phillips University, a small NAIA school in Enid, Oklahoma.
Kemnitz penned hand-written letters, what would later become his trademark, to several of the top Division I programs in the area, namely Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Arkansas. His college coach, Joe Record, convinced him to add WSU to the list.
“I’ll never forget he told me to add Wichita State to your list, ‘Because they just hired Gene Stephenson, so they must be serious,’” Kemnitz recalled.
With the help of his college pitching coach, Bill Brown, who had coached Stephenson when he was a player, Kemnitz landed a personal response from Stephenson, neatly typed up expressing interest in him joining his staff as a graduate assistant. It didn’t take long for Kemnitz to accept.
“It wasn’t like I had all kinds of choices,” Kemnitz said. “I’ve always been blessed that Gene Stephenson gave me that opportunity. Here I was a 21-year-old GA living in the dorms with guys on the pitching staff older than me. But I was thrilled.”
It didn’t take long for Kemnitz to earn Stephenson’s trust with the pitching staff and he was added full-time as the pitching coach in 1982, which coincided with the first time the Shockers reached the College World Series. It kicked off a historic run, as WSU would make it to Omaha a total of seven times between 1982 and 1996, including a national championship in 1989 and runner-up finishes in 1982, 1991 and 1993.
Kemnitz earned the reputation as one of the nation’s top pitching gurus, who specialized in the mental aspect of performance. His catchphrases are stuff of legend among Shocker pitchers, as are his hand-written notes jotted down on whatever piece of paper he could find. He has even taken his famous “flow” meetings from the dugout to his Twitter audience in inspirational messages he tries to package together somewhat regularly.
“The difference-maker for me was always going to be the mind, the mental side of things,” Kemnitz said. “That’s where I got that reputation. It worked because I tried to figure out each guy, I didn’t have a cookie-cutter approach to it. That’s what I told guys when I was recruiting and they asked, ‘What’s your philosophy?’ Well, my philosophy is whatever is going to make you work from a delivery standpoint, from a mechanical standpoint and most importantly, from a mental standpoint. If you ask anybody in the nation, what’s that Kemnitz’s deal? They would tell you that’s the mental guy and I love that.”
Those same relationship-building skills have served Kemnitz well in his second career in the WSU athletic department, essentially helping with donor relations for all sports.
It’s a job he feels “very blessed” with, a continuation of a life he never saw coming when the small-town Oklahoma kid moved to Wichita some 44 years ago. Being recognized in the Shocker Sports Hall of Fame just makes it all seem more like a dream.
“It was an unbelievable run and there were some amazing times,” Kemnitz said. “But when your peers and the university you worked at for 44 years gives you this kind of honor, you’re just speechless. I had tears in my eyes when I found out. I can still remember driving to Wichita, I was just thrilled to be able to start at the Division I level. You don’t think, ‘I’m going to be there my whole career and end up in the Hall of Fame.’ I still can’t believe it’s all true.”
Chelsey Feekin (volleyball, 2009-13)
One of the greatest setters to ever play in the Wichita State volleyball program, Feekin was a third team All-American in 2013 and honorable mention All-American in 2012. The Shockers reached the NCAA Tournament all four years she played and she helped the 2012 team in the Sweet Sixteen, while also leading WSU to a sweep of the Missouri Valley Conference titles in 2013 and being named MVC Co-Player of the Year the same season. She finished her career first in program history in hitting percentage (.431), fifth in assists per set (8.7) and ninth in assists (2,755).
Aliphine Tuliamuk (cross country, track and field, 2011-13)
Widely agreed upon to be the best runner to ever come through Wichita State, Tuliamuk was a school-record 13-time All-American. She earned 11 of those All-American honors on the track, including a second-place overall finish in the 10,000-meter run at the 2012 NCAA outdoor championships, and two of them in cross country, including a fourth-place overall finish in the 2012 NCAA cross country championships. She won 11 conference titles on the track and was the back-to-back Missouri Valley Conference champion in 2011 and 2012, while setting seven all-time top-10 records, including four school records that still stand to this day. She went on to win the 2020 Olympic Marathon trials in Atlanta and earned the right to represent the United States in the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Gordon Vadakin (bowling coach, 1978-2019)
Built the Wichita State bowling program into a national power, leading the Shockers to a total of 18 national championships, including seven for the women and 11 for the men. He also coached nine individual national champions and 15 professional bowlers who have combined for 61 professional victories. In total, Vadakin coached 145 All-Americans, 25 Bowlers of the Year and led WSU to 369 tournament wins. He’s also inducted into the United State Bowling Congress Hall of Fame.
Hunter Veith (track and field, 2013-18)
The small-town kid from Cheney blossomed into a full-fledged star at Wichita State, culminating in a first team All-American season in the indoor heptathlon in 2018, including a second-place finish overall with 6,090 points, after a first team All-American honors in the outdoor heptathlon in 2017. He also added a second team All-American honor in the indoor heptathlon in 2017. Veith qualified for the NCAA indoor championships three times and the outdoor championships twice, while winning five Missouri Valley Conference titles. He finished with the best scores in program history in indoor heptathlon and outdoor decathlon, as well as top-five marks in the indoor long jump, indoor 60-meter hurdles and outdoor long jump.
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