Pioneering JC Coach Wally Kincaid Dies

by John Manuel

Wally Kincaid, a member of the College Baseball Hall of Fame and Baseball America's Junior College Coach of the 20th Century, died Monday at age 89, according to Cerritos (Calif.) JC.

Kincaid coached at Cerritos from 1958-1980, and his teams won six California state championships in that span, more than any other team. A detail-oriented coach, Kincaid helped pioneer the pitching-and-defense, bunting-and-baserunning, pressure-packed style that many West Coast schools adopted. He also spawned and influenced many of the college game's top coaches.

"A lot of it starts with Wally Kincaid," Cal State Fullerton coach Rick Vanderhook said last January. "Coach (Dave) Snow, coach (George) Horton, (Dave) Serrano and I both went there, Coach (Bill) Mosiello . . . Kirk Saarloos' dad played for Wally Kincaid. It's kind of like Wally's tree.

"Cerritos 1965 team went like 40-1, and everyone kind of tailored their style of play after him."

That's probably because of his success at Cerritos, where his teams won 678 games, and because of the men he coached. He coached Don Sneddon and Dave Snow, who went on to be assistant coaches on Augie Garrido's initial 1975 Cal State Fullerton team. Sneddon then became the winningest coach in California JC history at Santa Ana JC (formerly Rancho Santiago JC), while Snow became a two-time BA Coach of the Year at Loyola Marymount (1986) and Long Beach State (1989).

"He was so ahead of his time," Snow said in January. "He was stressing on-base percentage long before statistical analysis made it famous. He always wanted his hitters to have as a goal to have their on-base 100 points higher than their batting average."

As detailed in January's "Right Back Where They Started" feature on Cal State Fullerton, Kincaid was the spiritual father of the Titans' program. Players such as George Horton, now the head coach at Oregon, played for Kincaid at Cerritos before joining Fullerton's first Division I team in '75. Later, Horton was an assistant at Cerritos, then took over the program in 1985, hiring Kincaid back as an assistant.

"My first year with Wally as an assistant, we flipped it, we had a great team and won the state championship," Horton said in January. "I wanted Wally out there giving me advice, which was uncomfortable at times, and if you weren't doing it exactly his way, he'd give you that look."

Dave Serrano pitched for that Cerritos team in '85, and later was Horton's assistant at Cerritos and Fullerton before becoming head coach at UC Irvine, then succeeding Horton at Fullerton and then going to Tennessee, where he's currently the head coach.

"I remember George used to follow me around and ask me questions and always wanted to talk baseball," Kincaid told the Los Angeles Times in 2007. "Dave was just an average pitcher, but he really knew how to get the most out of his talent and he's good at getting his players to do the same."

Kincaid certainly left a legacy in college baseball, one that has only grown since he stopped coaching. It's a legacy to be proud of.

http://baseballnews.com/wally-kincaids-system-led-cerritos-6-titles/

Additional Story: Wally Kincaid's System Led Cerritos To 6 Titles