Gwynn avoids messing with swings of his players

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It always seemed easy for Tony Gwynn as a player, even though it wasn't. We saw that sweet swing that amassed 3,141 career hits, eight batting titles and a ticket to Cooperstown. We didn't see the preparation that preceded it, the endless poring over video of his at-bats and opposing pitchers' tendencies. Surely, you'd think, Gwynn the college coach would be as fanatic about his players' preparation as he was with his own approach. And surely, you'd be wrong. "We've tweaked a lot of things," he said of his tenure as San Diego State's head coach. "But the basic premise of what we do is, keep it simple. "As players, we tend to complicate things by thinking too much. As coaches, our job for them is to keep it simple, keep it easy to understand. ... They came here because they wanted to play baseball, wanted to go up and swing the bat and make some pitches and play some defense. They didn't want me controlling everything." Which, upon further reflection, makes a lot of sense. Baseball is the most individualistic of our team sports, and anyone who's been around it for any length of time realizes a one-size-fits-all approach just does not work. Especially when it comes to hitting. True, the coach does possess all of those silver Louisville Sluggers, emblematic of National League batting championships. But he also understands the personal nature of the individual swing. Not that he wasn't tempted to tinker early on. "Oh, yeah, absolutely," he said. "When I got into this I thought, 'Oh, this is gonna be easy. Those guys are gonna pick it up like that.' It doesn't work that way ... I can't just throw my stuff on people like I did it. I have to give them the freedom to do what they feel they have to do. "I'll give 'em a (DVD), and if they look at it, fine. If they don't, fine. If they have a better way of figuring out how to take that consistent swing, by all means, help yourself." This is how time flies: Gwynn is starting his sixth season as San Diego State's head coach. And the guy who still could run for mayor of San Diego and win in a landslide is actually hearing some grumbling. Gwynn is 147-166 as a coach, including the Aztecs' 6-4 record this year. SDSU hasn't reached the NCAA tournament since 1991, and that gnaws at Gwynn. The comparisons to the team across town don't help. The University of San Diego won 43 games last year and hosted an NCAA regional, in Tony Gwynn Stadium, no less. But before you wonder if that stung, Gwynn -- a college teammate of USD coach Rich Hill -- said it was his idea to let the Toreros use the Aztecs' park for the regional. "I thought it would be good for the city," he said. "In doing that, I realized that should be us. We should be the ones hosting our own regional. So that's our goal. We make no bones about it. That's where we want to get to." Oh, and for the record, the Aztecs opened this season by winning three out of four from the Toreros. For his part, Gwynn is comfortable that he and his program have made progress. "I think people are surprised I'm still here. I love what I'm doing. I like teaching, and I think you have a better opportunity to get through at this level than you do maybe at the next level. "I'm having too much fun. It's been great. We haven't won as much as we'd like to win, but ... you ask, when did you get it? I think we started to get all of it last year, where we kind of tweaked our recruiting a little bit, we tweaked the way we do things, we tweaked the way we go about preparing these guys." He probably started behind the curve when he arrived on campus. A successful major league career doesn't prepare you for the grind of recruiting, or fundraising, or monitoring your players' academic progress, or the thousand-and-one other duties a college coach has on his plate. That could be why a relative handful of players have gone from playing in the big leagues to coaching on the college level. Most prefer to ride their buses in the minors, where they have a better chance of getting back to the Show. And none of those who have gone back to school have had Gwynn's resume. When he makes fundraising calls in San Diego, or contacts a high school player about becoming an Aztec, people pay attention. That buzz, along with his status as a San Diego icon, makes it highly unlikely that Gwynn would ever be fired. After all, would you then have to change the name of the stadium, too? This is the last year of Gwynn's three-year contract, but San Diego State athletic director Jeff Schemmel made it clear in a recent interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune that Gwynn's job is not in jeopardy. "Kids ask me all the time, 'How long are you gonna be there? What are you gonna do? " Gwynn said. "Hey, as long as they'll have me here, this is where I want to be. I'm not using this job as a steppingstone to go somewhere else. This is my alma mater. Hopefully, we win some games and I will continue to be there. If not, you find another job."(Contact Jim Alexander at jalexander@PE.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)