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Landon: WVU coach has answers for avoiding Herd baseball

May 31, 2008 @ 11:42 PM

CHUCK LANDON

The Herald-Dispatch

CHARLESTON -- Here they sat.

Marshall head baseball coach Jeff Waggoner was watching the state high school baseball tournament at Appalachian Power Park from the next-to-last row in front of the press box, two seats from the far aisle.

In the very same section, West Virginia University head baseball coach Greg Van Zant was sitting in the last row, three seats from the middle aisle.

The state's two Division I head baseball coaches were sitting about 12 seats apart.

Apparently, that's as close as they're going to get.

That's because their positions on reviving the Marshall-WVU baseball series with an annual corporate-sponsored game here in the APP are much further apart than their seats were.

Waggoner is unabashedly in favor of the game. But Van Zant admits it's not high on his agenda.

"It's not a huge priority for me, no," said Van Zant, who just finished his 14th year as Mountaineer head coach. "If we can play at home non-conference, I'd rather do that than travel.

"If we can play Tuesday at home, why travel for three hours to play Tuesday on the road? It just doesn't make sense."

What if Marshall agreed to play in Morgantown? Waggoner has stated he would do that.

"If every game was played at our place?" said Van Zant. "I don't think they would play every game at our field.

"We were playing Marshall for several years in a row when I was first the head coach. We were playing one year in Morgantown, then we would come down here and play because they don't have a ballpark.

"And, then, when David Piepenbrink got the job, he called me and said, 'Are you guys going to come to Huntington and play?' I said, 'We don't want to play at the (University) Heights.'

"And he told me, 'If you're not going to come to Huntington and play, we're not going to play.' So, that was fine. That's why we quit playing.

"It's just not easy. That's why we don't play Kentucky mid-week. You're looking at a four-hour trip to Huntington even if they had a ballpark."

That's why I suggested reviving the series in Charleston. It was a compromise.

"We always love to play in Charleston if it makes sense to do it," said Van Zant. "But we don't want to put ourselves at a disadvantage. I'd like to get a high RPI team in here for a game. Like Kentucky or Virginia or North Carolina State.

"But to go on the road and say every year we're going to play one team (Marshall) here, I don't know about that.

"Besides, this wouldn't really be a neutral game with Marshall. They play 15-18 games a year here."

If all this portrays Van Zant as anti-Marshall, that's unfortunate. He isn't.

"If you had walked into my bedroom when I was growing up in Williamson," said Van Zant, "it was all green and white. I grew up a Marshall fan.

"My dad (Jim) played on Marshall's NAIB national championship basketball team in 1947. He even played a year of baseball at Marshall with Jack Cook.

"To be honest, I wanted to go to Marshall and play baseball. But I wasn't good enough. At the time, Marshall's program was better than WVU's. I got recruited by WVU, so I went there."

We've heard Waggoner's stance and, now, we've gotten Van Zant's position.

Does it come as any surprise the two coaches didn't converse here at the state tournament?

By all accounts, resuming the MU-WVU baseball series has become a mute point.

Chuck Landon is a sports columnist for The Herald-Dispatch. Call him at 526-2827. E-mail him at clandon@herald-dispatch.com.