Wichita State baseball coach Gene Stephenson remembers dreaming to become a sports commentator as a student at the University of Missouri instead of a coach.

“When I was in college I saw myself being the next great color sports commentator for a major television network,” Stephenson said. 

Stephenson, who was playing football and baseball at MU, soon made a discovery that changed his life.

“I was at the student TV station in Columbia and on the student radio station giving interviews,” he said. “I heard and saw myself. I realized that no one would ever hire me.” 

This is his 36th year as coach of the WSU baseball team.

Stephenson was studying for a sports commentating degree with English and history minors, but all he really knew was sports, so he wanted to become a coach instead.

He graduated with 165 hours of classes and then joined the U.S. Army. His tour took him to Vietnam for one year and Berlin for the last two of his military career.

“It probably matured me more than having to deal with different kinds of problems (that people) would have, ” Stephenson said. 

After, he became the assistant baseball coach and football recruiter at the University of Oklahoma. He said he took the coaching job at WSU even though he knew coming to WSU would mean starting from scratch, which could be personal growth or the death of his career.

WSU baseball did not have its own practice field in 1977. The team took third priority behind the marching band and soccer club. His team practiced on the marching band field, which was a grass field in front of Hubbard Hall.

“When playing at games it was the first time we had played on an actual baseball field,” Stephenson said, remembering winning 43 games and a having winning record that year. 

Stephenson is proud that no other school since 1982 has had more academic All-Americans than WSU. The baseball team has 27 All-Americans; next behind them is Notre Dame with 25. Last semester 21 out of the 32 players on the roster were on the honor roll, of which Stephenson is proud.

Academic All American student-athletes must have at least a 3.30 GPA to be eligible and have completed at least a full calendar year of classes at their school.

Stephenson said there are three priorities he talks about with the players he is recruiting. 

“I want you to be three things. I want you to be the best student that you can be in whatever chosen field you have. I want you to be the best pitcher or player, whichever it is you have chosen to do on the field, and I expect you to be the best son that you can be off the field,” he said.

Stephenson said he has stayed at WSU for a simple reason: “[for] the opportunity to work with young men and hopefully give them something that they can take to be successful in whatever they choose to do after baseball.”