Mazey named WVU baseball coach

 Almost three weeks after announcing that former head coach Greg Van Zant would not be returning for the 2013 season, West Virginia announced that it would be hiring TCU associate head coach Randy Mazey to take over the program as it moves into the Big 12 Conference.

“I’m expecting big strides right away,” Mazey said. “I’m guilty of saying that you can win anywhere if you just get after it. As long as we get better every day and better than the game before, I will be satisfied.

“You can’t control wins and losses. You can only control attitude and effort.”

Before his time he has spent at TCU for the last six years, Mazey was the head coach at East Carolina and Charleston Southern. In his six seasons as a head coach, Mazey’s teams made the NCAA regionals four times and, in 2004, his East Carolina team won 51 games and played in the Super Regionals.

And he’s been able to take teams that weren’t expected to be very successful and turn them into winners.

In his final season at Charleston Southern, his team was picked to finish last in the Big South Conference. They went on to win the league and earn a trip to regionals.

He sees no reason why the Mountaineers can’t have this type of success early on in his tenure in Morgantown.

“I’m going to make an outside guess and say that West Virginia is going to be picked similar to where Charleston Southern was picked – which is an advantage,” Mazey said. “When your’e an underdog, there’s some excitement involved in that.

“Everybody loves the underdog and I think that’s what we’re going to be for a while. I think that’s going to help us until we establish ourselves.”

One of the things Mazey stressed the new staff would have to do in order to have success early in the Big 12 will be to hit the ground running on the recruiting trail. He said that moving to the new conference won’t just help the Mountaineers start a new pipeline in the midwest, it can make their recruiting even stronger where they’ve already established good connections in the past.

“Being the northern-most team in the Big 12 is going to be attractive to kids who want the opportunity to play against that type of competition, yet still stay somewhat close to home where their families can see them play,” he said.

“The one thing that has made me pretty successful at recruiting is that when they talk to me, they can sense my commitment to winning and my vision for taking a program to where it needs to go.”

During his time as a coach, Mazey has earned a reputation as a good pitching coach and a tireless recruiter.

Before joining the staff at TCU, he served as the recruiting coordinator and pitching coach for a Tennessee team that produced a pitcher who became a first round pick during his time at the school.

The Johnstown, Pa., native said he was in the good situation with the Horned Frogs, who are currently playing in the Super Regionals, but he just couldn’t pass up the chance to take over at West Virginia.

“Fort Worth was a great place, but when this opportunity came along and I saw what Oliver Luck’s vision was for the program, it became a no-brainer,” Mazey said. “It was something I just wanted to do and I wanted to jump on board and see how far we can take this program.”