USC baseball back thanks to coach who believed in its legacy: ‘They’ve got fight, man’ 

Among the deluge of congratulations that Andy Stankiewicz fielded after his USC baseball team’s long-awaited breakthrough was a text message that said it all.

“Just like the good old days,” read the note from Justin Dedeaux, son of legendary Trojans coach Rod Dedeaux.

What a glorious time it was.

Under the late Dedeaux, USC baseball was a brand on par with any in college or professional sports, winning 11 College World Series titles. The success continued under successor Mike Gillespie, who reached college baseball’s biggest stage four times, winning the title in 1998.

Since Gillespie’s departure in 2006, a program that produced Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson and Tom Seaver — not to mention Sparky Anderson, a onetime batboy for the Trojans — has been cloaked in anonymity. A hodgepodge of forgettable seasons — many under .500 — produced zero buzz.

Enter Stankiewicz, an old-school, unpretentious sort who has this team on the verge of being the talk of the town.

Starting Friday afternoon, USC (47-16) will play an NCAA Tournament Super Regional against North Carolina (48-11-1) on national television, needing only two wins in the best-of-three series to get back to the College World Series for the first time since 2001.

“I can’t tell you how fulfilling it is to see us back and playing a certain way,” said Adam Dedeaux, Rod’s grandson, “and learning how to win games, how to finish games, how to do the little things right.”

There’s a symmetry to the Trojans’ success under their most celebrated coaches and Stankiewicz, who in only his fourth season has guided the program to its first Super Regional since 2005.

If Dedeaux passed the torch to Gillespie — his onetime left fielder and one of only a handful of people to win a College World Series title as a player and coach — then Gillespie did the same for Stankiewicz. An Inglewood native who was a contemporary of McGwire and Johnson when he manned the infield at Pepperdine, Stankiewicz spent two summers playing for Gillespie with the North Pole Nicks of the Alaska Baseball League.

That’s where Stankiewicz learned a fundamental approach that relied on pitching, defense and scratching out runs. A renowned strategist, Gillespie’s most famous call was stealing home plate with two out in the College World Series.

“It was a chess game for him, and I began to really understand, like, how can I create an edge as a player against an opponent?” said Stankiewicz, a grinder of an infielder who finally reached the Yankees as a 27-year-old rookie in 1992. “‘SC always played a brand of baseball that was kind of my game.” 

After his playing career ended and he spent two seasons managing the Single-A Staten Island Yankees, Stankiewicz faced a decision: Should he stay in pro ball or go back to college?

Upon calling Gillespie and hearing his mentor talk about how much the college game meant to him, Stankiewicz decided that was the route he should take. He accepted a job as an assistant at Arizona State before later taking Grand Canyon to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances as the head coach.

Meanwhile, USC had fallen into decline because of a variety of factors.

Promising players who committed signed with pro teams before setting foot on campus. Scholarship limits and high tuition costs at the private school funneled other prospects to cheaper alternatives such as Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton. Some coaches emphasized getting to the majors over winning as Trojans.

“I went through a stretch of where it was all about getting to play professional baseball, right?” said Adam Dedeaux, who returned to USC as an assistant coach in 2013 after having been a freshman first baseman-outfielder on Gillespie’s final team.

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“We had a coach who came from that and he took a professional mindset in terms of development and getting to the next level and looking back, we weren’t ready for it — we needed more discipline, we needed more accountability and I think now we’ve got the right guy at the helm. I think this team has kind of taken on his personality.”

That means never giving in.

After dropping their opener in the College Station Regional last weekend, the Trojans rolled off four consecutive victories in elimination games.

“They’ve got fight, man,” Stankiewicz said of his players.

Knowing this wouldn’t be a quick fix upon taking the USC job in 2022, Stankiewicz didn’t make any bold promises.

“Right away, one of my first meetings with the players,” Stankiewicz said, “I was like, ‘Hey, I’m not going to sit here and tell you we’re going to Omaha next year.’ ”

The Trojans went a surprising 34-22-1 in 2023 — their first winning record in a full season since 2015 — before their rebuilding efforts took a literal detour. The renovation of Dedeaux Field forced the Trojans to play home games in Orange County in 2024 and 2025 before returning to campus this season, where they went 32-1 inside their gleaming new home.

Stankiewicz has filled his roster with players who weren’t necessarily the most coveted out of high school but possessed talent and could grow in the program. Grant Govel, who has developed into one of the team’s top pitchers, was coming off Tommy John surgery. Andrew Johnson, whose mid-90s fastball baffled Texas A&M last weekend, was topping out at 88 mph when he arrived.

“Sometimes you’ve got to go after guys that you know do it the right way,” Stankiewicz said, “and then you feel like you can look at them and go, this guy in two years, three years can be that guy.”

They’ve become that guy because of the guy who brought them here.

If all goes well, everyone could be rewarded with the Trojans’ first trip to Omaha in a quarter of a century, the passing of a legacy complete.

“I hope that Coach is proud,” Stankiewicz said of Gillespie, who died in 2020. “I think that he would look upon us and say we’re carrying the torch well.”