June 22, 2015
By Jerome Boettcher
OMAHA, Neb. –Â Drew Fann’s first taste of the College World Series was the summer before his junior year of high school.
Fann was up in Omaha for a national youth tournament, similar to the ones tons of young boys are playing in this week. Fann and his team played their games in the morning and then would venture out to watch the college game’s best play at Rosenblatt Stadium, which housed the CWS up until 2010.
At the time, his mother said she hoped one of her sons would get the chance to play in the College World Series.
Fann achieved that goal, and he’s been back twice more — one of only four Vanderbilt baseball staff members or players to be a part of all three CWS trips.
“It’s remarkable,” Fann said on Monday afternoon before the Commodores took the field against Virginia in the CWS finals. “I was talking to Maggie Corbin this morning and just how awesome it is here we are the second year in a row. As a wide-eyed freshman in 2008, I was hoping just to get close to a World Series. Now we’re knocking on the doorstep of doing some really great things.”
Besides head coach Tim Corbin, only Fann, athletic trainer turned strength and conditioning coach Chris Ham and sports information director Kyle Parkinson have been a part of the Commodores’ three trips to Omaha in 2011, 2014 and this year. No Vanderbilt player has been more than twice.
Fann was a catcher on the 2011 squad that broke through and made it to the CWS for the first time in program history. In fact, Fann and the Commodores played the first game in new TD Ameritrade Park. Since graduating in 2012, he has spent the last three years as the baseball program’s director of operations.
“The coolest thing by far is Coach Corbin,” Fann said. “We all wanted to do it in 2011 for Coach. We see him to get in the office at six in the morning. We still him stay until 10 at night. Nobody works harder than that man. Nobody deserves more than that man. Nobody cares about his players as people, not as people who help win a game, but young adults turning into young men like he does.”
Every trip has been special and unique for Fann, a native of Murfreesboro. But he says the 2011 appearance stands out the most. In 2010, as a redshirt sophomore, Fann was on a Vanderbilt team that went on the road and upset Louisville in a Regional. The Commodores lost the next week in a Super Regional to Florida State, but defeating Louisville boosted their confidence that they come back and go father.
And that’s exactly what they did in 2011 — sweeping through the Regional and Super Regional at home and reaching the final four of the College World Series thanks to a star-studded crew headlined by Sonny Gray, Grayson Garvin, Curt Casali and Aaron Westlake.
“For me the 2011 one really sticks out just because it was the first time, we were wide-eyed, first game in the brand new stadium,” Fann said. “It felt like we were all learning together how things worked… That 2010 Regional championship, even though we lost at Florida State the week later, that really propelled us in 2011 to say we belong in these postseason games and we can win these things.”
His second favorite memory was having his parents on hand last year for the championship series. The background on his phone is a photo with his parents and the national championship trophy. Terry and Vicki Fann have made the trek to Omaha each time from their home in Murfreesboro, staying the entirety in 2011 and coming up for the championship series in 2014. This year they flew up for the first two games and returned back, along with Drew’s younger brother Chase, to the Midwest on Monday in time for the finals again.
Now, in an administrative role, the College World Series has a different feel for Fann. He’s in charge for day-to-day operations, making sure the Commodores are on schedule to practices, games, meetings and dinners. He’s also had a front-row seat for the growth and development of a Vanderbilt team on the brink of winning its second straight national championship.
“He is very loyal to the program,” Corbin said. “He was very loyal as a player. He served for five years, and he wasn’t always in the spotlight when he did it. But you could tell the program, the school, the university relationships meant a great deal to him. He didn’t have to become a baseball operations person. He sought me out, said it was something he wanted to do. But, to this day, the reason he wanted to do it was his love of the program, love of the kids. I admire that. He takes a very servant role in a lot of different ways and an undercover role a lot of times. But I love him for it and I appreciate him wanting to do it.”
Sizzling outfield trio: The Vanderbilt outfield has been swinging the hot bats during the College World Series.
In three games, left fielder Jeren Kendall, center fielder Bryan Reynolds and right fielder Rhett Wiseman have combined to hit .393, drive in eight of the team’s 12 runs, score nine runs, tally seven extra-base hits and crank out two home runs.
Reynolds, a sophomore, leads the team in the CWS with a .500 batting average, six hits and is tied with Kendall for the team lead with three RBIs. Kendall, a Freshman All-American, made a huge splash by blasting a walk-off two-run homer in his first CWS game — a 4-3 victory over Cal State Fullerton last week. Wiseman, named to the CWS All-Tournament Team a year ago, has scored three times and crushed a two-run homer on Friday against TCU just innings after getting hit by a pitch in his neck.
Rare rematch: Two teams meeting in the College World Series in consecutive years doesn’t happen often.
In fact, the second straight Vanderbilt and Virginia matchup marks just the third rematch in CWS finals history. USC and Arizona State met back-to-back in 1972 and 1973 and Oregon State and North Carolina squared off two years in a row in 2006 and 2007.
In both instances, the team that won the first matchup (USC and Oregon State) also won the national championship the next year. Vanderbilt is trying to become the first repeat national champion since South Carolina won back-to-back titles in 2010 and 2011.
