Overview:
Bob Brontsema broke a UCSB record with 45 stolen bases in 1983 and set another with 485 victories during 18 seasons as head coach
Bob Brontsema’s last hurrah after 43 years as a Gaucho came through loud and clear last weekend.
The magnificence of last weekend’s Santa Barbara Regional of the NCAA Baseball Tournament resonated most with the former UC Santa Barbara baseball star and coach.
It was the final call of duty for an athletic administrator who wore many caps as the longest-serving Gaucho of them all.
“It was certainly a great going-away gift for me,” said Brontsema, who is retiring at the end of this month as UCSB’s assistant athletics director for events, facilities and operations.
He stirred plenty of cheers for UCSB in 1983 while serving as the captain for only the third baseball team in school history to earn an NCAA Tournament bid.
He later served the Gauchos as an assistant coach for three more NCAA Regional teams, teaching Jerrold Rountree how to break his school record for stolen bases in 1989.
Brontsema then set a different kind of record at UCSB by winning 485 games, from 1994 to 2011, as its head coach.
He guided the Gauchos into the NCAA Tournament again in both 1996 and 2001.
But his final stint at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium — a weekend during which Andrew Checketts drew two victories closer to breaking his coaching record — proved just as satisfying.
UCSB feels as much like a home as it does a school to Brontsema, and no gathering ever reflected that sense of family better than last week’s Santa Barbara Regional of the NCAA Tournament.
“It was really, really just a tremendous team effort,” he told Noozhawk. “And it wasn’t just the athletic department, but also facilities, and custodial, and parking, and grounds, and electricians.
“It was a phenomenal, full-on, university deal. The chancellor (Henry Yang) should be proud because it was great. It really was.”
Brontsema knows after 43 years at UCSB how difficult it is to stage that kind of event when you’re not a power-conference, athletic factory.
“You have to really commend (director of athletics) Kelly Barsky, and Tom Hastings did an incredible job of taking charge of it,” he said, referring to UCSB’s deputy athletic director for external affairs. “Tom had the most responsibility, so he certainly deserves a lot of the love.
“But everybody had a role and they were all important. It was without question a team effort.”
Going with the Gauchos
Brontsema became part of that team in the autumn of 1981 when former Gaucho coach Al Ferrer recruited him off the College of the Canyons diamond in Santa Clarita.
“Al was recruiting some other junior college guys that I’d competed against in the Western State Conference, and they were really good players,” he said. “He kept saying that they were my competition.
“I had been offered some out-of-state scholarships to places like Gonzaga, but the ego in me was thinking, ‘I can beat out those guys.’
“That’s really why I came, because I knew those guys and I wanted to take that challenge.”
Brontsema played second base and batted leadoff for a Gaucho team that staged one dramatic comeback after another to win a then-school-record 44 games during his senior season of 1983.
His 45 stolen bases set the tone for a team that used speed, pitching and timely hitting to tie Cal State Fullerton for the Southern California Baseball Association championship.
UCSB then rallied to beat the Titans, 6-4, in a special playoff game to secure the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
“We had so many things go our way that season,” Brontsema told me during an interview 30 years ago. “That team had the positive mental approach, the positive mental feeling, the belief that nothing’s going to stop them.
“That, and a great pitching staff, carried us further than any Gaucho team had ever gone at that time.”
UCSB was sent to the West 1 Regional at Stanford. It dug itself a typical hole by losing to San Diego State in the opener of the double-elimination event.
But the Gauchos rallied again to beat Oregon State and then trounce San Diego State in a rematch to set up a showdown against Stanford.
UCSB, which needed to beat the Cardinal twice, fell behind 6-2 before Brontsema’s third hit of the game set the table in the eighth inning for a three-run home run by Paul Smith.
But Stanford’s controversial, slow-rolling, bad-hop, three-run double down the third-base line put the Cardinal back on track to victory and the College World Series.
“We would’ve liked our chances against them in the next game,” Brontsema said last week while recalling the 1983 regional. “I’m sure (UCSB pitching ace Dan) Yokubaitis would’ve been available for it, and he was just money that year.
“That Stanford game was going like so many of our other games when we’d fall behind and then come back. Paul Smith hits his homer and we’re like, ‘Hey! We’re going to win this game!’
“And then that fluke, bases-clearing, 90-foot double … It looked foul to a lot of people, especially our third baseman.”
Brontsema, however, looks back at his final playing experience with nothing but fondness.
“We had a great run with a great bunch of guys, and that’s what I chose to get out of that,” he said. “I was raised by parents who made it obvious that you need to dwell on the positive and look at your blessings as opposed to the other.
“I think that’s partly how I survived 43 years at UCSB — with positive self-talk — even though I was filled with doubt my whole life.
“I’ve had disappointments in my life, but no regrets whatsoever. I can’t imagine anyone having been luckier than me.”
From Player to Coach
Although Brontsema wasn’t selected in the 1983 Major League Baseball draft, he was approached with some free-agent offers.
“I was either too intimidated by it — lacked the confidence to go out and do it — or was wisely turning it down to get in and finish my degree and take the next step toward what I really wanted to do,” Brontsema said. “And that was to coach.
“I had the opportunity to be a graduate assistant at UCSB, so I took it.”
He later replaced Tim Brown as a full-time assistant coach before succeeding Ferrer as the Gauchos’ head coach in 1994.
He wound up passing Ferrer’s school record of 445 coaching victories in 2010.
“I am extremely grateful for the opportunity that Al gave me, both as a student-athlete and, of course, with the coaching opportunity,” Brontsema said.
His desire to coach had been triggered while playing for Mike Gillespie at the College of the Canyons.
Gillespie later coached USC to the 1998 NCAA championship and UC Irvine to the 2014 College World Series. He died in 2020 at the age of 80.
“When I got to junior college, I thought I had a good idea of what baseball is all about,” Brontsema said. “Gillespie kind of showed me that I didn’t know what I was doing and didn’t know what I was talking about.
“He taught me things about the game that I never thought existed.
“I decided right then that coaching is what I wanted to do … That I wanted to have the impact on some kid that coach Gillespie had on me.”
Eight of Brontsema’s Gauchos made it to the Major Leagues, including the American League’s 2005 batting champion (Michael Young of the Texas Rangers) and its 2002 Cy Young Award winner (Barry Zito of the Oakland Athletics).
He won’t opine, however, on which UCSB team was the best during his tenure as a player or coach — from 1982 to 2011.
“I could certainly throw them into a hat to be pulled out and discussed, but it’s really difficult to compare just because things change,” he said. “Some of the teams that did not make a regional were outstanding teams.
“I know you’re judged on making regionals and that kind of stuff, but that ’84 team was good. So was the one in ’85.
“We had a great club in 2008 that was a regional-type, quality team.”
The Odyssey of 2001
His 2001 team was loaded with three future Major Leaguers: outfielders Skip Schumaker and Ryan Spilborghs, as well as pitcher Virgil Vasquez.
Pitchers James Garcia and Ryle Ogle, third baseman Dave Molidor, second baseman Chad Peshke, first baseman Tyler Von Schell, outfielder Jed Stringham and designated hitter Mike Kolbach joined them on the All-Big West first or second teams.
Catcher Donovan Warrecker, as well as Spilborghs and Peshke, also made the all-tournament team at the Notre Dame Regional that year.
The Gauchos, however, were eliminated after three games in the double-elimination event. Notre Dame knocked them out in an 11-10 thriller. UCSB’s wounded pitching staff gave up 40 runs in its three games.
“We did not advance like we felt we could, but we kind of felt jinxed,” Brontsema said. “I don’t want to go into the details about what happened behind the scenes and the injuries that just changed everything, but at some point you think, ‘Geez, can we catch a break ever?’
“But that’s just how it plays out … That’s life, and there’s a reason for everything.
“Those guys were really special, though. My ’96 team had some great guys, too. They all did.”
Change of Positions
The Gauchos broke even during Brontsema’s last three seasons (2009-2011) with a combined record of 79-79.
Mark Massari, who had succeeded Gary Cunningham as UCSB’s director of athletics in 2008, decided that some fresh, new blood would better facilitate his plans to upgrade resources for the Gaucho baseball program.
He moved Brontsema into an administrative position and replaced him as coach with Checketts, a promising young assistant at the University of Oregon.
Brontsema took the high road while informing his players of the change, telling them, “It’s a sad day for some, but it could be a great day for the program.”
He explained what he meant 13 years later, after last week’s regional — the seventh that UCSB has reached during Checketts’ 12 full seasons as head coach (the 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
“You kind of knew that if they were going to try to bring in a big-time coach and make it work, they were going to have to support the program,” Brontsema said.
“Since then, that support has been great and it’s continuing to get better, culminating with the regional here.”
He decided to remain at UCSB after having looked at other options to remain in coaching.
“What I say is that you get Santa Barbara-ized,” Brontsema said. “It’s mesmerizing how fantastic it is here.
“The community, and the people in it, are special.
“I was incredibly fortunate to just keep falling into the next position to get to stay here this long.”
Checketts moved past Ferrer and into second place for all-time UCSB coaching wins last month. His record of 453-247-5 has him poised to pass Brontsema’s record of 485 victories next year.
“I’ve had records before and they’ve been obliterated … Thanks, Jerrold Rountree,” Brontsema said with a laugh. “As Robert Frost says, ‘Life goes on.’
“It’s just a matter of time. It’s certainly not some rummy coming in here and beating a record. Andrew is going to obliterate a lot of records here.”
Talking a Good Game
He’s remained close to Checketts’ baseball program by serving as a color analyst on Gerry Fall Productions’ live-stream Gaucho telecasts on ESPN+.
“It is something I enjoy doing more than anything out here,” he said. “When I got done coaching, I was able to watch my son (John) finish his two years at Santa Barbara High School, play college ball for three years (at UC Irvine), and pro ball for four more.
“That kept me in the game, and it was awesome.
“And then this streaming stuff started and I was able to jump right into that. I love working with Gerry and Kevin Cannon.”
Brontsema described Fall as the “outstanding professional” and Cannon as his friendly sparring partner.
“He likes to throw barbs back and forth to me, which I really like,” he said. “He knows that gets me on some tangent, on some stupid subject that will get a couple of laughs here and there.
“Kevin is a really good guy and he’s such a vital part of the program here. I’m glad Gerry has included him because the mix of everybody makes it a good show.”
He wants to remain on the live-streaming crew for as long as Fall wants him, although he is planning several trips with his wife, Kathleen.
“I’m certainly looking forward to paying her back for all she’s sacrificed and done for me,” Brontsema said.
“I like to say that I’m not actually retiring, I’m just reorganizing my time to spend it with the people I love.”
His son spent many years with him in the dugout as a Gaucho bat boy. His daughter, Kathryn, was also a constant fixture at UCSB’s games.
That lent itself to an emotional Senior Day of 2011 for Brontsema as well as his dozen seniors.
The long-time Gaucho choked up when asked about the experience of throwing out the first pitch for this year’s Senior Day game against UC Riverside.
“Johnny was in the dugout for my last game, and we had a pretty compassionate embrace back then,” Brontsema said. “My daughter, Kathryn, was there, as well — in the background but just as committed and just as meaningful to me.
“Both of my kids grew up at that field, so I got pretty emotional the other day when I walked out to the mound with Johnny to throw out that first pitch.
“I told him that this embrace is going to be a lot better … a lot more meaningful.”
