On June 8th, West Virginia's season ended in the Super Regional round of the NCAA Tournament and with it, so did former head coach Randy Mazey's career.
13 days later on June 21st, Steve Sabins was officially introduced as the new head coach of the Mountaineer baseball program, but Mazey's fingerprints will not be easily erased.
Sabins and Mazey have worked together for nine years, with Mazey as the head man and Sabins serving as an assistant. Now, Sabins takes the reins from Mazey, in a decision that was made last summer as Mazey now moves into an advising role.
Despite being a head coach in waiting this year, Sabins was still serving as an assistant but kept more tabs on what was working and what wasn't more so than in recent years.
"I signed up to be the assistant coach and be supportive and loyal to Coach Mazey and his ideas and his wishes. I think the only difference is you start to evaluate everything that you’re doing. The biggest luxury is you have a year to evaluate every step of the way. You can’t help it as you’re planning and you know this is on the forefront in front of you, you start planning, and saying, would I do that a little bit different," Sabins said.
"'Man, we do so well in that area, we need to keep going with it, we need to build momentum off of that. I don’t think I love that, that’s an area I could get better in.' Kind of a year of analysis but at the same time as an assistant, you’ve got to give positive feedback and negative feedback to the head coach, going, hey, we’re doing this great, we’re screwing this up. That’s been my role for nine years is basically being an honest voice to Coach Mazey."
Mazey's physical presence will still be around the baseball program, but his presence through what he's taught Sabins will also be shown.
"I think Coach Mazey has permeated who I am. I’ve seen Coach Mazey more than my wife and kids over the last nine years there’s no doubt about that. I’ve spent basically every day with the guy," Sabins said. "So, it starts to blend a little bit, like, what you think and what he thinks and what I said and what he said. You start thinking he said something, but it was me and those kinds of conversations happen all the time where you’re like, ‘Coach Maze, I told you that, now you’re telling me,’ that kind of thing. I think it’s really blended together.
"He’s done such an incredible job to take this program from where it was coming from the Big East into the Big 12. If we were sitting here today when that happened, I think we would all be absolutely shocked that this has happened inside of this program. He’s to credit for that with his leadership and I’ve learned so many things from him it’s impossible to really count at this point."
Sabins added he will continue to go to Mazey to get his perspective on things, while he also knows Mazey will come to him to also voice his opinion.
"I guarantee you he’s at every single ballgame and he’s not going to be able to help himself. He’s going to let me know what he thinks about what’s going on the field. But I really will cherish that and look forward to having those conversations," Sabins said.
In the meantime, Sabins said Mazey will be enjoying retirement and the time he is going to get to spend with his family.
"He’s retired and he’s going to enjoy retirement. He’s worked really hard to deserve that. There’s going to be plenty of days where Coach Mazey is hunting and fishing, he loves that, that’s a passion for him," Sabins said. "And most importantly, spending time with his kids. He’s worked his whole life and he’s missed a lot of ballgames. He’s missed a lot of things with his two kids Weston and Sierra and is going to spend more time with Amanda. He’s always a phone call away, I want him to be around here."
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