(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part series on retired St. Bonaventure baseball coach Larry Sudbrook who will be honored tomorrow afternoon with an honorary “Last Lap” around the bases at Fred Handler Park at McGraw-Jennings Field.)

When it was time for Larry Sudbrook to step away from his job as coach of the St. Bonaventure baseball team, he invoked the words of Bills Hall of Famer Marv Levy.

He said, ‘If you’re thinking about retiring, you already have,’ and I think there’s some truth to that. I had reached a point where I was thinking about it … are you working as hard as you used to? Do you have as much drive and energy? And, if you don’t, it’s not fair to the young men.”

So, after 36 years on the job, 725 wins, 44 All-Atlantic 10 players, 22 who played professionally and with 14 drafted by major league franchises, Sudbrook called it a career.

“WHEN YOU make a life-altering decision, there are a lot of things to think about,” he said. “I’ll be 68 this September, and I still enjoyed the job immensely … every part of it … the games, practice, the young men, I even enjoyed the parents.

“And most coaches will tell you that’s what drove them out. I remember Ronnie Atkins from Richmond, I was talking to him after he announced his retirement and I asked why he was leaving. He said, ‘Parents think you should play the eight best players and their son.’ But I never really had a lot of problems with it.”

Still he had an amusing story that was close to home.

“My first son (Shane) didn’t play his first three years (on the Bona) team. Midway through his senior year, a guy got hurt and he got in, hit over .300 and only made two errors. And his mother, like most moms, said, ‘See, he should have been playing before.’”

But the Bradford resident also had his own family-related coaching test.

“My other boy, Cory, wasn’t as physically gifted as Shane, so I tried to make him into something where he could contribute,” Sudbrook said. “He became a specialty sidearm pitcher and ended up having a very good career for us getting right-handed hitters out. He had a big, slow breaking ball and a fastball that ran in on right-handers and he was very successful doing that. We always told him he was Cy Young versus righthanders and ‘sayanora’ vs. lefties … lefties hit him hard.”

He maintained. “There were more positives than negatives of my sons playing for me.

Was there a little more pressure when we would bring Cory in with runners on second and third and a right-handed 3-hole hitter up and we’re protecting a one-run lead? Sure, because not only did I decide to change pitchers and the game’s on the line. it’s also my son.”

THEN, IN talking about his retirement Sudbrook, noted, “After 30-some years, I would spend every summer convincing myself that we could compete with half the scholarship allotment and less coaches than other people but I believe you have to do that in the job.

“On occasion we did, but over the course of time, the conference continued to enlarge and got a Southern imprint where they take baseball much more seriously than some northern schools.”

He conceded, “It got to a point where I couldn’t convince myself much and it was time for somebody else to take over. I had actually been considering it even before Covid hit and (that) was so miserable … to send all those kids home after we played seven games in March of 2020, then in ‘21 coaching a team in New York State at St. Bonaventure where we still had a lot of restrictions. We thought we’d have a decent team but we opened at Youngstown State and it was their 17th game because they did not have the restrictions that we had.”

SUDBROOK concluded, “All those things together made me decide (to retire). The only reason I did it in October is I wanted one more normal fall … I always loved fall baseball. You come in with all the optimism in the world … to see all the new kids that you recruited and how much they’ve improved over the summer. It’s just a fun time, the weather’s fantastic in September, you’re outside practicing every day. The year before we were wearing masks, we had to start two weeks later than normal, we were being tested (for Covid) it just wasn’t a normal fall.”

THEN, TOO, he began having less success in rural recruiting which had served him so well earlier in his career.

“The biggest reason was travel baseball,” Sudbrook said. “When I started at St. Bonaventure there were few travel teams and they were truly elite Div. I (populated rosters). We would find tons of young men down in Central Pennsylvania where it was still a big deal to play for your town legion team … the pride and rivalry.

“We found a kid in Galeton where they didn’t even have a high school baseball team. We had a kid from Mount Jewett who went to Kane, which also didn’t have a team at that time.

“I always joked that if my lawn chair watching a game was sitting on level ground, I probably wouldn’t get that kid, I’ve got to be somewhere it’s on the side of a hill.”

He admitted, “The first few years I was naive and figured I could recruit kids from North Carolina, Florida and Georgia. And I could get to the final three or four of those kids, but eventually, they’d ask the question ‘Isn’t it pretty damn cold up there in March and April?’ You ended up spending money and recruiting time on kids you had very little chance to get.

“I came to a point where I had to recruit kids from New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio who are used to playing when it’s 45. They might not love it, but it doesn’t scare the hell out of them. But it became more-and-more difficult to recruit kids on the small-town teams who were going to play travel ball with a team out of Pittsburgh, Buffalo or Rochester. If they were a Div. I-type player and weren’t playing on the town team any more, those travel teams, everybody sees them.”

SUDBROOK concluded, “When I announced my retirement (the school) wanted to do a bunch of different things, even waiving the 5-year waiting period to get into the Hall of Fame, which was nice. But I said to Steve (Mest, senior athletic director for external relations), ‘Did you guys talk to my doctor, am I not going to live five years?’

I told him, “You know what I’d be comfortable with … for 30-some years we’ve had the tradition of seniors taking the ‘Last Lap’ after their final home game. I don’t know of any other sport or team that does it … taking a last lap around the bases. I would like to do that.”

(TOMORROW: Sudbrook talks about his teaching career, an embarrassing mistake, a team tragedy and an error that cost 16 wins.)

(Chuck Pollock, an Olean Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)