Overview:
Installation of new video board will lead to next year’s $15 million renovation of Caesar Uyesaka Stadium
Nobody enjoys a walk more than UC Santa Barbara baseball coach Andrew Checketts.
Not the one he takes to the mound to remove a pitcher. And certainly not the walk known by scorekeepers as a “base-on-balls.”
But he does his best thinking while on the move, and he’s had a lot to think about this summer.
“I’m walking the outfield,” Checketts announced upon answering my call to his cell phone last week. “I usually walk to the beach, but my son is here, hitting in the cage.
“Otherwise, I’d be walking from campus to Campus Point right now.”
The turn of 14 seasons at UCSB’s Caesar Uyesaka Stadium has made it familiar turf.
He broke Bob Brontsema’s school record for coaching victories this spring and is now sitting pretty with a career mark of 455-247-5.
But sitting still is not in his makeup.
That’s a good thing, considering his roster for next season keeps shifting on the two tectonic plates of college baseball: the NCAA transfer portal and next Sunday’s start of the Major League Baseball draft.
Hudson Barrett, his Freshman All-America pitcher from 2023, has submitted his name for both after participating in last month’s MLB draft combine.
Gaucho commit C.J. Hughes, a shortstop who batted .466 last spring for Gardena’s Junipero Serra High School, also showcased his skills to the big-league scouts in the Phoenix event. Baseball America ranks him at No. 214 in the list of draft prospects.
Checketts’ best pitcher, junior Tyler Bremner, has all but departed to the pros after MLB.com projected him as one of the draft’s first 15 picks.
UCSB’s top pitching recruit, Joshua Jannicelli of Santa Rosa’s Cardinal Newman High, also could go MIA after the MLB rated him at No. 155.
Checketts must also prepare for the possibility of losing his starting catcher.
“There’s a chance somebody could sign Nate Vargas,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s even going to happen, but we have to hedge our bets a little bit and get a third catcher.
“We’re on the hunt for that right now.
“We have a high school guy coming in (Braden Watson of Peoria, Arizona’s Liberty High), but he had shoulder surgery last year. He can hit, we’re just not sure where he’s at, arm-wise.”
Although the transfer portal creates just as much uncertainty, it’s already given a boost to the Gauchos’ offense.
They’ve received commitments from a pair all-league veterans: outfielder Mitch Namie, who led New Mexico State with a .340 batting average and 46 RBI last spring, and infielder Nick Hosovsky, who hit .336 with 10 home runs and a team-best 59 RBI for Ball State.
Video Game
Checketts is also approaching an ever-changing landscape that includes both UCSB’s infrastructure and the regulatory structure of college baseball itself.
The former laid before him as he walked from one foul pole to another during the Noozhawk interview.
A crew was busy dismantling the old-school scoreboard beyond the left-field fence. It will soon be replaced by a state-of-the-art, 60-by-35 foot video board beyond right-centerfield.
“It will be a significant addition,” Checketts said. “I think Oregon has the biggest one on the West Coast, and this one is the same size, or its height might even be a little more.
“Hopefully, it will cover some of that electrical building in right-center. It’s a pretty view except that part of it.
“A tree beyond the fence fell over during the storms, so it’s wide open and you’re now left staring at that building.”
The summer makeover will include new padding around the outfield fence.
It adds to the $2.8 million turf and drainage system installed in 2024 and the $1.6 million project that added lights to the stadium in 2020.
But the big Gaucho enchilada is now being prepared for both baseball and softball, made possible by an anonymous gift of $15 million.
The donation has prompted UCSB to reconsider the master plan it created for Uyesaka Stadium after its College World Series season of 2016.
“That one was a little more athletics-based and casual in terms of the long-range master plan, and used more for talking points and fund raising,” Checketts said. “The $15 million won’t do everything that we want for baseball and softball, obviously, but we want to know exactly where that’s starting.
“I know where I want it to be, but we have to have everybody on board for that.”
He expects the project will include additional seating as well as permanent restrooms and a concession area that will serve both Uyesaka Stadium and the adjacent softball facility.
UCSB made a key investment in women’s softball when it hired College Softball Hall of Fame coach Jo Evans to take over before the 2023 season.
She guided the Gauchos to their first NCAA Regional final this spring and now ranks seventh all-time in NCAA Division I coaching victories with a record of 1,382-790-2.
“We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to tie softball into this project, and what we’re doing from a perimeter standpoint for the ballpark,” Checketts said.
“We’d like to include the auxiliary seating beyond the outfield (right field).”
Major Renovation
UCSB recently took the first step in this long walk by contracting with HOK, an architectural firm that has designed several other university projects.
Earlier this week, Kevin Cannon, Uyesaka Stadium’s director of facilities, sent Checketts some photos of the field that were taken more than a dozen years ago.
“He told me, ‘These just popped up on my memory feed,’ and I was like, ‘OK, we have made progress,’” Checketts said. “It was bad until about 2015, 2016.
“The field looks great right now, so I feel pretty good about that, and we’ve still got the outfield pad project and video board coming in.
“We’re chipping away … And, hopefully, in 12 months, we’ll have something bigger going.”
Last month’s House vs. NCAA anti-trust settlement, which allows colleges to directly pay their athletes, has also necessitated some revised planning at UCSB.
“College baseball went from 12 to 34 scholarships when that House settlement passed, and there are teams that are going to 34 … or at least going there incrementally,” Checketts said.
“We’re in a position where we’re fundraising to fill that gap so we don’t fall behind.”
Coastal Carolina, a midmajor sports program like UCSB, upset its way to the 2016 College World Series title during its first trip to the Omaha championship. The Gauchos made their CWS debut that same season.
But Coastal Carolina also made it back to Omaha this year, falling to LSU in the final.
“I think they’re a good model for us,” Checketts said. “They’re at 34 scholarships now plus revenue sharing (with its players).
“They built a $16 million stadium the year before they went to the World Series that first time.
“They’ve invested in baseball, and we’ve got to bridge that gap. We need to cut down some of that distance, and we’re doing that.”
Adding scholarships, he said, would help “level the playing field.”
He just wishes the pace of progress could match his own brisk gait. It’s taken time for his Gauchos to reach this point.
That hit home when Checketts heard the crack of ball meeting bat as he arrived at Uyesaka Stadium’s right-field corner.
Son William, fresh off his summer season with the Dos Pueblos Little League’s 14U All-Stars, was taking his cuts in the batting facility named after Dad’s predecessor, Bob Brontsema.
He’ll enter Dos Pueblos High School as a freshman next month.
“He’s got the bug,” Checketts said of his son’s baseball passion.
“He was born when I got the job here,” he continued. “Michelle was due when I came down for the news conference.
“I flew back (to Oregon) and waited three days for him to be born.
“Three days later, I was on the road recruiting.”
Fourteen years can mature a program as much as a son.
“I didn’t just get here,” Checketts said, “although it still feels like it.”
The job for today’s college coach, after all, is never done.
