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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
When Metro baseball head coach Bobby Pierce was a little kid growing up in Las Vegas, one of his first questions as he ran onto his first diamond was, "where is shortstop?"
Now in his second year as head coach for the Roadrunners, Pierce is thriving and content in Denver leading his team to greater heights. But the journey to Metro is a telling tale.
Once Pierce found his way around the diamond as a young kid, he quickly fell in love with the game.
Although he was pushed by his father to play baseball and almost rejected it from the start, America's pastime quickly became the younger Pierce's love, and he soon decided that no other sports were for him.
"In Las Vegas, we could play baseball year round," Pierce said. "And that's all I wanted to play."
After a great prep career under high school Hall of Fame coach Roger Fairliss at Green Valley, Pierce had his first vision of a possible pro career. In their inaugural draft, the Diamondbacks took Pierce with their 60th pick. The team did not however offer any pay, only a bus ticket to their Rookie League team. Pierce chose to attend college instead.
He began as a great hitting second baseman at his hometown team of University of Nevada-Las Vegas, but eager to make it to the pros, decided he would transfer to Central Arizona Junior College so he could be drafted a year earlier.
It looked as if Pierce had his baseball career mapped out until an injury slowed those plans down. To this day, he fails to find the origin of what occurred.
"I don't know how it happened," Pierce said. "It was a freak injury."
At first he figured he could push through it and continued with his transfer to Central Arizona.
"I thought I could go to Central Arizona College," Pierce said. "Get my arm better and go to the pros."
Once he arrived in Arizona, he was officially diagnosed with a torn labrum and would have to have surgery after the season. His dreams of a pro career were fading, and he decided to focus on academics in case the pros didn't call.
While he struggled on the diamond in his sophomore year, his life started to come together. It started when Pierce found the woman who would later become Lizette Pierce. It was a match made in diamond heaven.
"She was a softball player, I was a baseball player," Pierce said.
But his career as a baseball player looked dim, as his arm strength deteriorated. After his year in Arizona and the surgery, he knew it wasn't getting better.
"Some days my arm would show up," Pierce said. "But sometimes I couldn't throw the ball 90 feet."
He realized his chances at the majors had ended when his coach at his final college, New Mexico State, relegated him to first base.
"I could hit a little bit," Pierce said. "But once my shoulder was done, I was really a liability at second, short or third."
With a pro career becoming an afterthought, Pierce directed his aim toward academics, eventually studying toward a degree in accounting. He had a short stint in his final year of college as an assistant to head coach Gary Ward at New Mexico State, but when he graduated, his goal was a job for an international accounting firm.
"That's where I got my head together," Pierce said. "And I really started excelling at academics."
Once again an event beyond his control changed his direction in life: September 11. After the calamity and the resulting economic problems, jobs for accountants dwindled.
Pierce, in need of a job, called Clint Myers, his old coach at Central Arizona College. And since the old recruiter had just retired, Pierce was thrust into recruiting new talent for the top-ranked junior college in the nation. Almost immediately he realized that he would not be looking for an accounting job in Phoenix. He would be coaching baseball instead.
"Within the first two weeks at Central Arizona, I just knew that I had to be coaching," Pierce said. "I started dedicating every single moment to being a better coach."
After making a name for himself as a recruiter, Pierce was offered the recruiting coordinator and hitting coach position at Division I Arkansas-Little Rock. He quickly jumped at the opportunity knowing this would help toward his goal of becoming a head coach.
He quickly made an impact, as he rose the team's batting average nearly 20 points while putting together two nationally ranked recruiting classes.
"Two of my keys (to recruiting) are getting people of high character and high quality," Pierce said.
It was at the start of his third year at Little Rock that Pierce realized his dream of being head coach could soon be possible.
He had heard that there was going to be an opening at Metro and he quickly rushed to secure the job.
As head of the Roadrunners, Pierce feels he is at a good place at this stage in his career. He has turned the team into RMAC leaders, due in large part to the new recruits Pierce brought in this season. But his big goal for Metro is to win a national championship and put the Roadrunners baseball team on the map.
"My ultimate goal is to win a national championship and another one and another one," Pierce said. "I want everyone in the country to know who Metro State baseball is."
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