Tigers' Toughness, Resilence Made 2010 Team Special To Leggett

The ball, hit sharply off the bat of Alabama’s Andrew Miller, struck Dominic Leone hard on the leg and ricocheted to second baseman Mike Freeman, who tossed to first base for a routine mid-game out.

Leone went down, popped immediately back to his feet, dusted off his uniform and waited for the baseball. ESPN’s camera focused in on the face of Jack Leggett, whose expression revealed mild concern, but perhaps also a hint of satisfaction at Leone’s ready demeanor.

“He bounced up and was ready for the next batter,” Leggett said. “He didn’t want to come out, and he didn’t want to waste time for me to come out and see how he was. You could see by his body language that he wasn’t hurt. He was ready for the next batter. He’s a tough kid and that was an opportunity for him to show that toughness.”

Toughness – mental and physical – is what Leggett admires most from his players and his team.

And for that reason, above all else, Leggett will remember the Tigers’ 2010 season as a special one.

To achieve their national Final Four status, the Tigers had much to overcome, including a season-long penchant for making things hard on themselves.

That their bid for a national title, which included winning the Auburn Regional as a No. 2 seed and rallying from an 0-1 deficit to beat Alabama in a Super Regional, ended with back-to-back College World Series losses to South Carolina took little away from this team’s big-picture accomplishment, Leggett said.

“This was one of the very best seasons in Clemson history,” Leggett said. “Only a couple of teams made it as far as we did. And to face all the things we did along the way, it was really unique, really tough at certain times. We faced a lot of adversity and negativity, and those were areas we had to try and overcome, keep battling, keep on working, keep the guys’ heads in the game, keep players’ confidence going.”

He described the Tigers’ losses to rival South Carolina, which came after Clemson had taken driver’s seat position in its bracket by beating top-ranked Arizona State and Oklahoma, as “one of those things that’s tough to take sometimes.”

“But in this state, we have to keep it in perspective,” Leggett said. “We have respect for South Carolina. They respect us and the coaches respect each other. We were out there battling as tough as we can and they hit it just right, and they have to be commended for that.

“It's a national tournament and two teams in South Carolina are among the last three playing in the country. The whole state should feel good about the baseball we play. I'm not going to let anybody diminish what we accomplished, what came from this season."

In future years, Leggett will hold up his 2010 team as an example of the power of perseverance and self-belief.

“There were a lot of tough times in the middle of the season, and if you don’t believe something, then you can never achieve something,” Leggett said. “All the time, even through the tough times, I believed that if we could just keep working and get our act together, we could be one of those teams that made it to Omaha by being tough to beat at the end of the season.

“As coaches, we kept believing in it and our players kept believing in it. As coaches, your players feed off you – if you give up, then they’re going to give up. If you have bad body language, they’re going to take that to the bank. If you’re positive, then that’s what they’re going to take to the bank. If you challenge them and believe in them, then they respond.”

He said the lesson of 2010 is “that we’re never going to write the season off around here. We’re going to compete and we’re going to play tough. It’s a marathon in which the national champion is going to lose 18 or 20 games over the course of the season. It was tough because we didn’t play very well for a long stretch of the year. Even then, we never totally fell apart, though. We weren’t playing great, but we’d manage to win a couple when we had to. We didn’t pack it in. That was important. We kept talking to them about keeping their heads in the game, being mentally tough over a long season.”

Toughness was a big part of the reason that Leone, a freshman, emerged as the Tigers’ third starter for the decisive Super Regional game and then again in the College World Series.

“We named Dominic as our starter because we knew he’d be a great competitor for us,” Leggett said. “He’s in great shape and he has tremendous concentration and focus. You can tell by his attitude that he’s a tough kid. He’s as loyal and hard-working as any kid you could possibly find…I was looking for a guy who would battle and compete in that situation…

“I couldn’t be prouder of him, and I couldn’t be prouder of this team. They came from the depths, kept their heads in the game and kept on battling and working at it. We pieced things together along the way, looking for the hot hand.

“We did some tough things during the last month or so. We came out of exams playing good baseball. We had to beat Florida State three times in one weekend to win our division, and we did. We had to win the last game of the ACC tournament to get some momentum going into NCAA regional, and we did. We had to bounce back from a tough loss to Auburn and come back, and we did. And we had to put a tough loss to Alabama behind us, and we did.

“I’m just so proud of these players. When things are tough and you battle your way through it, then that’s a heck of an accomplishment. That means a lot to me.”