Duties Change, but JC Baseball Coaches Don’t : So, Fullerton’s Sgobba and Saddleback’s Brideweser Decide to Call It Quits

It wasn’t long ago that the responsibilities of a community college baseball coach were few and simple. This was the main reason Mike Sgobba, Fullerton College’s coach, stayed on for 24 years. And it is the reason Jim Brideweser became Saddleback’s coach in the first place.

During the four months of the baseball season, they did little more than managerial duties three times a week. They were given lighter classroom loads so they had more time on the practice field, and during the game, well, that was simple, too. The filled out lineup cards, gave signs to baserunners and went to the bullpen when the starter was in trouble.

But community college baseball has become more complicated, and as a result, the coaching responsibilities have increased more rapidly than the players’ aluminum-bat inflated batting averages.

Shrinking athletic department budgets, intensified recruiting competition and the scheduling of summer and winter leagues have turned coaching into a highly demanding, high-pressure job.

And for Sgobba, 55, and Brideweser, 58, it has become too demanding. Sgobba, after 24 years, and Brideweser after four, announced their resignations prior to the end of the just-concluded regular season.

Neither tired of baseball. Sgobba plans to continue as a professional scout and Brideweser plans to work as a Saddleback assistant.

What did get tiresome, however, were the extra tasks that became a big part of the job. Instead of spending time on the field, they said, they had to concentrate on recruiting, fund raising, coaching in off-season leagues and in Brideweser’s case, serving as Saddleback’s head groundskeeper.

“I’ve gotten calls from many of my former players, and they’ve all asked me if I’ve made the right decision. I’ve told them I have,” said Sgobba, who is retiring only 13 victories short of 500 career wins.

“I’m not a statistics-type guy, so I don’t have a burning desire to stay around to win 500. My responsibilities have increased so much, I really had decided it was time for a change at the beginning of the school year.”

Brideweser: “Coaching on this level has became a full-time, 12-month-a-year job, and when you also work as an academic counselor as I do, you just have too many demands on your time.

“You can’t even go on vacation anymore, because if you do somebody steals your players. You have to be around to recruit all the time.”

In the 1960s and 1970s, the community college concept was adhered to by local colleges in their recruiting practices. That is, coaches recruited only players from within their community college districts.

But more recently, recruiters started raiding other districts, which caused hard-feelings between the coaches. Sgobba and Brideweser are two casualties of the recruiting war.

“The recruiting situation has become cut-throat,” Sgobba said. “The community college baseball coaches of Orange County used to be very close and have a special camaraderie, but that’s all gone now, and that’s one of my biggest dissatisfactions of recent years.

“You really have had to fight for players, when before a player belonged to you if he lived in your area. We stay within our district here, but there are other coaches in the county who have gone out of their way to go to other’s districts to get players.”

Brideweser: “There are no restraints on the recruiting anymore, none at all. If you get caught cheating in another school’s district, nothing happens. And this open recruiting has made my job much, much harder.”

Those are some bitter memories, but Sgobba and Brideweser will be taking many good memories with them as well.

Sgobba was hired in 1961, the same year Hal Sherbeck became the Hornet football coach. Sgobba’s career record is 487-325-7, including two South Coast Conference titles, in 1971 and in 1983.

In Sgobba’s 24 years at Fullerton, 120 Hornet players signed professional contracts, and 280 gained scholarships to four-year schools.

Those numbers, not his career record, are what make Sgobba proudest.

“I think success is best measured in what you contributed to the community and how you contributed to the lives of your players,” he said.

“When a player comes back to visit you years later and tells you what his involvement with the game of baseball and Fullerton College did for him, what a difference it meant in his life, that is when you get a feeling of satisfaction.”

Sgobba, a former basketball official in the defunct American Basketball Assn., has been a part-time scout for the Oakland A’s for several years. He plans to work for Oakland more now that he won’t be coaching, but will remain at Fullerton as an instructor.

Brideweser certainly hasn’t been a head coach as long as Sgobba, but he has worked his way up before taking over the Gauchos’ program. He was a minor league coach, a high school coach and a Saddleback assistant for 18 years when he finally became a head coach in 1982.

Saddleback won the Pacific Coast Conference championship in 1983 and 1984, and advanced to the semifinals of the state tournament in 1983, when Brideweser had what he considers his best team.

Brideweser was associated with two other great teams in his career. He was an infielder on Rod Dedeaux’s first national championship team at USC in 1948 and then played for the world champion New York Yankees in 1952.

“At USC is where I really learned the game, and got to know the fundamentals,” Brideweser said. “At USC, I was your basic utility infielder. My job was to take care of Phil Rizzuto’s glove.”

Brideweser will remain at Saddleback as an assistant to new coach Marshall Adair, and that, he said, will allow him to to do what he likes best: teach the game.

“I’m going to work mostly with the infielders, that is my expertise,” he said. “Teaching to me is the fun part of coaching, what coaching is all about.

“And now I’ll be able to concentrate on the teaching aspect, and leave the headaches of being the head coach to someone else.”

‘And now I’ll be able to concentrate on the teaching aspect, and leave the headaches of being the head coach to someone else.’

--Jim Brideweser