Florida Atlantic University Athletics
Cooney's Reward: 600 victories, 'legit program'
6/11/2001 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
June 11, 2001
May 16, 2001 - By Jorge Millan
Palm Beach Post
When Kevin Cooney was named Florida Atlantic University's baseball coach in 1988, he inherited the task of moving the program from the NAIA level to Division II on a shoestring budget.
The job brought back memories of his working-class childhood in New Jersey, where is father drove a bus in Newark and never made more the $10,000 a year.
"My mother taught me how to rob Peter to pay Paul," Cooney said. "She'd pay the milkman one month and the oilman the next. It was the same way here. We had to be creative."
And even swipe some things. Cooney would pull over to the side of highways to collect orange cones to use as batting tees. Before a game at the University of Tampa, he noticed nobody gathering new white balls hit over the fence during batting practice. So he sent some of his players to snatch the freebies.
Players shared beds on the road, where candy bars were often the main course at dinner.
Cooney can now laugh about his humbling start with the Owls. Today, FAU opens the TAAC Tournament against Stetson in Jacksonville, shooting for a third straight berth in the NCAA Regionals. The Owls (33-21), who lost 17 players to pro ball in the past two seasons, are unlikely to receive an at-large bid, but Cooney knows their growing reputation will at least earn them some consideration.
"People are thinking of us in a different manner now," he said. "We no longer have to sell FAU as a legit program."
Count Jim Morris, coach of perennial power Miami, among the believers.
"I think they're a sleeping giant," Morris said. "They're getting players now that we would like to have. I know that wasn't happening 10 years ago."
Cooney, 50, has been the constant in FAU's rise. He won his 600th collegiate game this season, and hopes the future will include a new on-campus stadium.
Pretty ambitious for a guy who started out with a $40,00 budget. And pretty successful for someone who once abandoned the sport.
That was in 1974, when Cooney was pitching in the minors for the Minnesota Twins. He made a pact with God--if he made it to the majors, he promised to devote himself to underprivileged children.
Two days later, he blew out his arm and his career was over.
"I was really bitter," Cooney said. "I didn't watch a baseball game for a year. And I didn't pray again for two years."
When Cooney finally returned to the diamond, it was as the coach of is alma mater, Montclair (N.J.) State, where he learned the game under longtime coach Clary Anderson.
During his playing career, Cooney had developed an interest in coaching, and he shadowed Anderson.
"I sat there figuring out what he was doing and asking questions, instead of screwing around like everybody else," he said.
Cooney led Montclair State to the Division III College World Series title in 1987 and then took the FAU job. He took with him lessons learned from Anderson, including a strong but reasonable approach to discipline.
"I learned from him that you can be an authority figure and still be a human being," Cooney said.
In 1993, Cooney was set to throw shortstop Nick Presto off the team before reconsidering. Presto's temper had gotten him into more than one confrontation when he went to see Cooney.
"He was really mad," said Presto, a graduate of Jupiter High School. "He almost ran me out of there. He told me, `I'm not worried about wins and losses. I'm worried about how this program is represented.'"
Presto eventually straightened out and became FAU's best player for several seasons. In 1996, Presto led the Owls to the TAAC Championship game before being drafted in the fifth round by the Cincinnati Reds.
But Cooney's and FAU's greatest success came three years later when the Owls tied an NCAA record with 34 straight wins and ranked as high as No. 8 nationally.
That season ended with a 3-2 loss to Miami in the final game of the NCAA Regional in Coral Gables.
"That woke people up around the university," Cooney said. "You could see the pride it brought people here, from the clerks in the offices to the grounds guy to the president."
The Owls made it back to the NCAA Regional last season, before being eliminated again by the Hurricanes.
"We left both of those regionals feeling like we belonged there," Cooney said.
John McCormack, Cooney's top assistant since 1990, agrees the Owls are enjoying a new found respect.
"Now you walk into a recruit's home and people know you," McCormack said. "They say, `Hey, that's the guy from FAU.'"
Cooney now pushes for more resources--increased salaries for his assistants, a better recruiting budget , and of course, a stadium. He said FAU is "dead in the water" without a new facility to match stadiums of TAAC rivals Stetson, Central Florida and Florida International.
But at least he no longer needs to hunt for highway cones.
"We're way past that," Cooney said.
