Oct. 10, 2008
Keith LeClair is the reason Vanderbilt assistant Erik Bakich got into coaching.
“I wanted to do what he did,” Bakich said.
Bakich arrived at East Carolina as a business major, but that changed after just one semester around LeClair, the prototypical player’s coach whose energy and whatever-it-takes attitude was infectious.
“It wasn’t so much about Xs and Os, it wasn’t so much about mechanics or fundamentals,” said Bakich, who played for LeClair from 1999-2000. “He just had the ability to get everyone on his team to want to just run through a wall and to outhustle and outwork the opponent and just bust your butt to do anything to compete and to win.”
Keith LeClair is the reason Bakich wears No. 23.
“I think about him every time I put on the jersey,” Bakich said. “I had never worn No. 23 until I started coaching, and I knew once I did start coaching, I would always want to wear his number.”
Bakich isn’t the only one. In fact, he is one of seven of LeClair’s formers players currently coaching Division I baseball. There’s Cliff Godwin at Central Florida, Joe Hastings at Boston College, Nick Schnabel at Liberty, Bryant Ward at South Florida, Ben Sanderson at Florida Atlantic and Brian Cavanaugh at East Carolina, all wearing No. 23.
“We’re coaching because we all made a promise to him that we’re going to do everything in our power to get our teams to Omaha like he did for us,” Bakich said. “We want to have the same impact on the kids that we’re coaching that he had on us and eventually get to Omaha. When it does happen, when we do get to Omaha, part of us is going to think, `This is for him.'”
Keith LeClair is also the reason why the Vanderbilt baseball team will take part in The Walk to Defeat ALS this Saturday at 9 a.m. at Centennial Park.
On July 17, 2006, at the way-too-young age of 40, LeClair died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, after a grueling five-year battle. Bakich said the hardest part was watching how quickly the disease took control of his hero and inspiration.
Bakich remembers watching LeClair hit fungoes during the Super Regional in June 2001 before being diagnosed with ALS in August. By January, LeClair could still walk, but he could barely talk, and things only deteriorated from there.
“He was strong as an ox so that was tough to watch his body start to escape him,” Bakich said. “I know that was tough for him because his mind was still sharp as a tack.”
That’s the cruelty of ALS. You’re a prisoner of your body. Still, LeClair fought the disease the same way he played – like a warrior.
“The way he handled it was amazing because to be honest, I could not have handled it the way he did,” said Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin, who is an honorary co-chair for Saturday’s walk along with his wife Maggie. “He just kept living and living and living.”
Through it all, LeClair kept the qualities that made him special.
“The thing that Eric will remember and I will remember is the personality and his humor – he just never lost it,” Corbin said. “Although he couldn’t speak it, he could do it through a computer and through his eyes, and it was amazing really.”
Corbin never coached LeClair, but their careers were certainly connected. Both grew up in New Hampshire before moving down South. LeClair played at Western Carolina for Jack Leggett, who went on to hire Corbin when he took the job at Clemson. Then, it was LeClair who recommended one of his former players for the volunteer position at Clemson.
“He called me and said, `I’ve got your next volunteer,’ and it was Eric Bakich,” Corbin said. “From there, everything kind of evolved and grew. It was a long relationship with a guy who I liked and really cared for.”
That’s why Corbin was so eager to get involved with The ALC Association. In its ninth year, approximately 150 Walks will be held around the country this year. Nashville’s first Walk was held in 2003 and since then more than $1.6 million dollars has been raised to help support those living with ALS in Tennessee.
“Common people like myself walk because they see how the affliction torments a human being and it’s just devastating and you can’t understand why life works in that direction right there,” Corbin said. “We get involved because you would never hope that would happen to any of your family members or anyone that you personally know, and I think that’s why people jump in there head first and say yeah, `This is a cause worth fighting for.'”
The significance of Saturday’s Walk isn’t lost on Vanderbilt players.
“The fact we would postpone practice for this walk just shows the importance of the issue,” said senior first basemen Andrew Giobbi. “I didn’t know the connections that (Bakich) had with it, but I know it’s very important to Corbs to get out in the community, especially for something like Lou Gehrig’s disease, which is directly correlated to baseball.”
Kind of a twisted irony, isn’t it? That LeClair died of the same disease that took a star athlete from the sport he loved decades earlier. Kind of sad, too, that there still isn’t a cure.
“That’s why we need any type of research and funding and just walks like this,” Bakich said. “Anything to help promote a cure because there is no cure and to find a cure in this lifetime would be awesome.”
