We Lose a Great HS Baseball Coach

[tu2004]

Last night at San Jose Muni the season ended for Menlo School and the brilliant career of the Head Coach, Craig Schoof, came to a conclusion. Craig retired this year as the AD and head coach at Menlo, During his years as the baseball coach, the team went from 0-22 to numerous CCS titles. Our son played for Craig and was inspired, as were so many others, to play beyond HS. Some of the mental aspects our son learned from Craig inspired him to believe he could play beyond college, which he did, and to have a passion to become a baseball coach, which he is.
During his career, Craig did not always have the best talent, but his coaching always made his teams compete at a level most would not have guessed.
My position is Craig's coaching was always worth one run per game.
In this article, John Reid does a really nice job of capturing some of the essence of why Craig made his mark and it didn't matter if team had Stanford recruits or one kid going to a D3. Menlo and CCS have lost a terrific HS baseball coach.

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula-sports/ci_25848284/reid-column-schoofs-swan-song-fittingly-at-san

 

[colhenrylives]

Did he leave on his own or was he asked to leave? It's not clear at this point.

 

[tu2004]

My opinions of Craig are very much formed by what I observed him do coaching his players and umpiring in the MA Little League. He is direct and up front. I think the answer to your question comes from an interview published earlier this year when Craig indicated the following:

""I have decided it is time for me to look for a different challenge.
Professionally and personally, this is right thing for me to do," Schoof
said. "Every 10 years or so I have enjoyed challenging myself with
something new, whether it be moving to college coaching or moving from
the middle school to high school, and now it is time for a big leap into
a completely new environment."

He is moving to become AD at a school which does not have baseball. When Craig arrives, I wonder if baseball might well arrive with him. That seems like the type of challenge and opportunity which fits very well with his decision.

 

[seansullivan]

I played for Craig on the very first team he coached (in 1978 in Sunnyvale). He was still attending UCSB (and pitching) at the time and was only 3-4 years older than the kids on the team. I played for Craig for my final three summers of high school, and while I knew I would never play beyond high school, it was always fun to show up for games and the occasional practice. My final year was especially fun as we were the "leftovers" from the kids still wanting to play baseball. We literally ended up with all of the kids that nobody else wanted on their team (for lack of talent). By the time the season was finished, we beat the mighty Berkovich team (with John Abrego, Reggie Mosley and several other college-bound players) at the Palomino NorCal finals at Washington Park in an elimination game and jumped ahead of them in the championship game the next night only to lose in the latter innings (by about 5 runs). Berkovich went from there to the Palomino World Series the next week and won the championship. We had the worst uniforms, we had no scholarship players and only 3-4 kids that went on to play any college ball (mostly at the JC and D2 level) and we beat teams with future Stanford, Santa Clara, Cal, UCLA, Arizona State players and never gave it a second thought.

Craig knew all the rules, knew and could teach all of the pitches, but mostly made the game fun for our last hurrah. I always will have a soft spot in my heart for Craig. Thanks for everything Coach.

 

[atcshrk]

I feel sad that one-by-one we are losing the very best coaches in our area. I'm also thankful my sons got through before some of the best ones left.

Craig is a great HS baseball coach who does things the right way. We (Bay Area) will miss him GREATLY!

Thank you Craig!

 

[CityVibesII]

Had the pleasure of both playing and coaching against him. Best of luck with all future endeavors.

 

[seansullivan]

I hear you atc. Both Craig and Sandy Wihtol (who stepped down last year after several years at Los Altos) were products of the Jim Hemphill system at Homestead and guys that I looked up to as a young player. There are several qualified young coaches out there, but the combination of the high cost of living in our area, the proliferation of travel teams (which waters down the high school "experience"), the time/money it takes to get a teaching credential and the relative (to other local professions) lack of pay and the relative domination of the private schools will mean fewer and fewer quality programs and coaches going forward.

 

[InExile]

Craig is a great coach and a really good dude. HS baseball in Nor Cal will be the worse for him leaving.

Best of luck Craig!

 

[dad394]

Sully - it's good to see you spending your time productively hanging around the high school baseball message board!

I find it hard to believe you were one of the "leftover" players - are you sandbagging again like you do on the golf course?

Your Buddy Philly from Burlingame

 

[seansullivan]

Hey Philly - you know me, just trying to class-up the joint. And, trust me, we were the leftovers. All of the "A" players went to the top teams in Sunnyvale/Cupertino/Los Altos and we got the next level guys from Homestead, Fremont and Peterson and then added a guy here and there from Awalt, Mt. View, Silver Creek, Piedmont Hills, etc and the next thing you know we had some decent players. We played against your buddy Phipps(?) from the SFFD team in the City out at Sunset Park and then would go to Hayward the next day and play Bercovich (I remember facing Johnny Abrego under the lights and the first pitch was called a strike -- I looked back at the ump with a furrowed brow and he gave me a dirty look -- so I said "you know, that pitch sounded outside" -- I sure as hell couldn't see it coming in at 92ish).

I will have to adjust my message above, as we did have one guy make it to the Bigs. About two weeks into the season, we picked up another guy that didn't have a team. MIke Dalton, a lefty pitcher from Mt. View who ended up wtih a cup of coffee from the Red Sox and Pirates(?). I, of course, went on to star in fraternity and beer league softball.

 

[dad394]

Hey Sully - did you have the opportunity to dig in against the great Sal Vaccaro?

 

[NCSF]

I'm sending this to Sal to show him somebody thinks he's great!

 

[seansullivan]

NCSF - that would make two people that consider Sal "great"...as Sal is certainly the top player ever from Daly City (wink, wink). Philly - I don't recall ever facing Sal...I am sure I would have hit a slow roller between short and 3rd.