This past Saturday John Goelz was honored at a banquet for his service as the Sonoma State baseball coach. You would think he would be excited for such an occasion. On the contrary, Goelz does not like being the center of attention. Though he did say what is special about the whole thing is getting phone calls from ex-players expressing their gratitude for what Goelz has given them over the years.

“What I would like to get across is how much of a difference they’ve made in my life,” Goelz said. “Any small thing that I gave them has come back to me 20 times over.”

Some of the things that have come back are a constant flow of talented players from Goelz’ coaching tree. There are 110 coaches at high school and junior college levels who have played for Goelz recommend Sonoma State to their players because of the positive experience they had. It certainly paid off as the Seawolves have won over 400 games since 1999 and are considered one of the top Division II programs around.

In 2004 SSU had one of the best draft classes in the country with four players being taken in the first 11 rounds. That was better than eight Pac-10 schools and no other D-II teams came close. “Really we’re riding the wave of success,” he said, “because these (former players) have had great experiences and they come back.”

When Goelz took over, the baseball program was laughable. They never boasted a winning record and were coming off a season in which they were 7-42 before Goelz got the job in 1986. In two years the Seawolves had their first winning season. In four years the team won their first conference championship. In his tenure, Goelz has over 800 victories and nine conference titles. For the past three seasons, the team has gone to the NCAA regionals making it to the NCAA tournament in 2008 where they finished third in the nation.

The team had a GPA of under a 2.0 and a horrible reputation on campus before Goelz arrived. He wanted to not only make his players better on the diamond, but better in the classroom as well. “Baseball is a big part of our success, but it goes beyond baseball,” he said. “It has to do with the long haul in life, that the guys were getting some other things out of it as well. Making sure they got their degrees and they’d be set to do great things with rest of their lives. And that’s helped our program as much as being good baseball coaches.”

A coach with as much success as Goelz, he’s had his share of opportunities for big time gigs at Division I colleges. However, as he continued to coach at SSU, he realized he already had the job he wanted.

“I think God puts you in a place for a reason and I realized being in the same place for a long time was making me a better coach and a better man.” He went on to say he does not plan on hanging up his coaching hat for awhile either. He joked that with advancements in modern medicine, he would be able to coach for another 50 years. It won’t take 50 years to reach 1,000 wins for his career - which he mentioned would be a very satisfying accomplishment.

It also helps having one of the most talented teams Goelz has ever coached coming into the 2010 campaign. The team is ranked second in the conference in the pre-season poll and Goelz anticipates the team has a good chance to advance to regionals for the fourth consecutive season. “There’s a lot of wonderful people here I’ve had the opportunity to work with and have been very kind to me,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine a better place and that’s why I’m here.”