Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect a correction. Former Ohio baseball coach Jerry France was misidenitified as Steve France.
With the 2012 season now in the past, the Ohio baseball program is looking to shore up its future.
The search for retiring Bobcat coach Joe Carbone’s replacement has begun. Ohio athletic director Jim Schaus has indicated that the next skipper might be named in the near future.
“A national search for the next baseball coach at Ohio University is currently taking place and we hope to have the process completed in the next two to three weeks,” Schaus said in a statement. “The search will be comprehensive, seeking a coach who can further build up the program’s tradition.”
Ohio Athletics officials have not revealed who is being considered for the position. The Post’s public records request for a list of candidates is pending.
Carbone declined comment on the search and said he preferred to stay out of the proceedings, leaving the search entirely up to Schaus. He told The Post earlier this year that he has recommended current associate head coach Andrew See to be his successor.
If See is chosen to fill Carbone’s role, he will continue a long lineage of Ohio baseball coaches that played for Ohio.
Don Peden took the helm in 1924, and every baseball coach since was a Bobcat player before he became the skipper. That’s a tradition 89 years old.
Peden coached for 25 years, Bob Wren led for another 24, and Jerry France was in charge for 16 seasons before Carbone came back to Athens. Wren played for Peden, and France and Carbone played for Wren.
Former player Mike Florak said that hiring See, a 2002 Ohio graduate who played under Carbone, is important to the program’s tradition.
“(Carbone) felt such a great responsibility to coach (Bill) Toadvine and coach Bob Wren, and that tradition is why Andrew See needs to be the next coach,” he said.
Cory Keylor, See’s former Ohio teammate, said that See would be the perfect fit based on his six seasons coaching the pitchers, his recruiting under Carbone and other coaching stops at Appalachian State and North Carolina-Greensboro.
“I couldn’t think of a better guy to take over,” Keylor said. “Obviously he knows a lot about Ohio University and player experience. He understands that family atmosphere. It’s a special job and a special place, and I think everybody that I know that’s played with Andrew and knows him is pulling for him to get that job.”
Keylor added that See would do an outstanding job of carrying on the tradition of coaching Ohio baseball and showing incoming players what it means to be a Bobcat.
Florak said See could be at OU for the long term much like the coaches that came before him.
“Andrew would be the next coach to be here for the next 25 to 30 years,” he said.
Keylor said that keeping See in the fold is important to current players who would have to deal with a drastic change in coaching style that they would see with a coach from outside the program.
“There will be some changes in leadership style — everybody is different — but the essential thing is keeping that legacy in-house and having the players continue in that type of path as far as atmosphere and appreciation and understanding for what it means to be an Ohio baseball player.”
nr225008@ohiou.edu
