Daily Trojan speaks to new baseball coach

Over the summer, the USC Athletic Department named former Major League Baseball player and Grand Canyon University manager Andy Stankiewicz the new USC baseball head coach. The move followed the Trojans’ last-place finish in the Pac-12 in 2022. 

The Daily Trojan spoke with Coach Stankiewicz to discuss his goals as head coach at USC.

Daily Trojan: First of all, welcome to USC. I would love to know what it means to you to be joining the Trojan family and how it felt when you learned you were the new manager here.

Andy Stankiewicz: Well, exciting, very exciting. You know, being raised in Southern California… in the ‘70s and ‘80s you dreamt of, you know, going to SC — and I was a decent athlete. I had aspirations to play football as well, but I realized quickly that probably wouldn’t work. So, shifting gears to baseball, to come back home some 30, 40 years later to be named head coach at  University of Southern California Baseball, it’s a big moment for me and my family and I’m extremely excited about being here.

D.T: [You’re] a SoCal native, and I saw you went to Pepperdine University. So, is it more special to be coming back to L.A. after spending a long time in both Phoenix and in the minors and now leading the Trojans again?

A.S: Yeah, it is cool. You know, you circle back around, never know where and when life is going to take you. It just goes and you go with it. The next thing you know, I’m getting an opportunity to come back home. I still have family here, I’ve always felt like Southern California is kind of home. Coming back home is exciting because, you know, you’re born and raised here and then you get away and you’re always kind of like… ‘I’d love to get back to SoCal because it’ll always be home.’ And so to be able to come back home and then to be the head coach at SC, it’s like a double bonus, man. I’m thrilled. 

D.T: Talking about your time at GCU, you were obviously quite successful there, winning five conference titles and Coach of the Year four times. How do you hope and how will you be able to continue that success now here in the Pac-12 with USC?

A.S: Well, I’m going to need support. I need support from the incoming administration. And that is something that I felt right out of the gate when I met with [USC Athletic Director] Mike Bohn and [Associate Athletic Director] Lindsay Jaffe. I just felt like, man, starting from the top, I feel like there’s going to be all this support that we were going to need to move the program well and quickly. Another part is getting a coaching staff that I feel like could help us… restore SC. I feel like the coaching staff that we’ve been able to put together quickly is as good as any in the country. Travis Jewett has been a recruiting coordinator at Arizona State University, Vanderbilt University, head coach at Tulane University. Randy [Flores] is a hitting coach because his offensive coaching is good out there. Then to bring Seth Etherton back home again — obviously, a great Trojan in his own right. You know, [Etherton] was a part of the 1998 College World Series team. I think all that and then the staff that we have in place, I think it’s going to be as good as we can possibly imagine. It is a big part of it. I mean… you have to make some moves before players even get here, right? So, when they arrive at the end of this month, they see that there’s structure in place – there’s organization. There’s going to be attention to detail. So these guys are going to be a huge help for us to kind of put all those necessary things in place for the program.

D.T: You’re mentioning how it is important to have a foundation before going out and recruiting a lot of players. What has recruiting been like now for USC since you’ve joined? Is it different than your time at GCU? And additionally, have the NIL deals had a bigger play into any of recruiting now?

A.S: Well, it’s similar. When I started at Grand Canyon, everyone was kind of like, ‘Okay, what’s going to go on there? What’s going to change?’ I think that there’s a little bit of a really cool buzz about what we’re doing, what we’ve been able to, like I said the guys that are in place. But, you know, the truth of the matter [is], there’s still the unknown. Okay, how are they going to compete? What are they going to do? So right now, I got to find young men that want to be a part of something to restore. There’s other programs that have had success, but, hey man, we’re SC, and we’re going to turn this quickly. So, it has a little bit of a feel to where I was early at Grand Canyon in that respect, like, okay, we got to kind of rebuild the structure a little bit, right? So, I think that’s what this early part is going to be about. Now, don’t make any mistakes here, we’re going to win. We’re going to compete well. We’re going to teach them how to play good baseball. We’re gonna teach them to be great teammates. We’re going to build all those foundational dynamics to a ball club. But, I think people are just excited. At the same time, it’s our job to show them that they should be excited for a good reason and be excited for the long haul, not just for a short moment, right?

D.T: Obviously, USC’s baseball program the last few years has not been to the standard of USC athletics for a lot of other sports. They haven’t made it to the NCAA tournament in several years. But you, on the other hand, have led the Antelopes in Grand Canyon to the postseason many times over your tenure there. Will we see the Trojans make the postseason? 

A.S: You know, our goal is to win a national title. I mean anything less is falling short. You know, you look at that left field wall at Dedeaux [Field], it says 12, right? 12 being 12 national titles, the most of [any team in Division 1 baseball]. So I’m fully aware of that, our coach is fully aware of that. I feel a responsibility. I feel an obligation to the University. I feel an obligation to the alumni. I feel an obligation to Los Angeles to win a national title. You know, if you’re a competitive person, that’s the goal. So, I’m not saying that’s going to happen next year, but I’m saying that we’re going to rebuild and restore the foundation and program that can be on a competitive level year in and year out. I think that, when you look at the great programs in college, what they do is they’re consistently in the postseason. Step one is to get to the postseason, and then step two is always being in the postseason. Once you get to that point, well you put yourself in a position to compete for national titles. So, that’s certainly the goal.

D.T: You’ve had a very successful baseball career starting from playing in the majors to coaching the minor leagues and then some college runs just most recently with Grand Canyon. What does it mean to you now to be this manager and what does mentoring and being the leader to these young new years of baseball talent mean to you to give back to the game?

A.S: Well, I take a lot of pride in it, Joey. I just respect this position tremendously. I respect coach [Rod] Dedeaux. I respect coach [Mike] Gillespie, which I played for two summers. He was a mentor to me and a young man two summers in Alaska and a big influence in my life getting back into the college game now. He is the person I called when I was done with my playing career, “Hey coach, what do you think? Should I get back into college?” He had a big impact on my life and I think about what he did for me and I want to do this and do this for these young men as well. I want them to feel like someone’s in their corner and not just baseball-wise, but life-wise.

D.T: I’m sure. Yeah. I mean, any career where you actually make it to the big show, I’m sure there’s a lot of adversity that you have gone through.

A.S: Yeah. And so I think that, you know, it’s not easy, man. What these young men are trying to do is to be great baseball players and be students and be great citizens and be great teammates. There’s a lot of things that go into this and so we want to be able to share all that with them… More than anything, I want the players to know I got their back, man. I’m in the corner with them and that’s what we gotta show them right out the gate.