Davidson, coach enjoying unexpected run to Super Regionals

DAVIDSON, N.C. — Davidson coach Dick Cooke knows the Wildcats baseball team isn't supposed to be in the super regionals.

But he also knows life can throw you a curveball.

Cooke is a walking miracle to those at the school who were around five years ago to see the results of his frightening and near-fatal car wreck.

The coach was returning from a recruiting visit on Sept. 18, 2012 when a speeding driver plowed into his Dodge minivan from behind on a Charlotte highway, sending his vehicle plummeting down an embankment and into a sea of trees.

The minivan was mangled beyond recognition and Cooke wasn't much better.

He sustained bleeding on his brain, four broken bones in his right leg, a broken cheekbone and a punctured right lung. Cooke, now 60, remembers nothing about the accident, not even the moment when authorities found him in the woods crawling toward the interstate.

For years Cooke wasn't able to do the things he loved to do: hit fungoes, throw batting practice and catch bullpen pitchers. He's worked back to doing some of those things now, but still walks with a noticeable limp.

"To see the transformation from my freshman year with him going through the lowest of lows to seeing him at the highest of highs has been a lot of fun to be a part of," said Davidson's ace pitcher Durin O'Linger.

This is clearly the highest of highs for Davidson, which has become the surprise story of the college baseball playoffs.

To put Davidson's success story into perspective, the Wildcats had never won so much as a regular season championship in the school's 115 years until this season, when they captured the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament. The Wildcats kept that momentum going by defeating in-state power North Carolina this past weekend to earn a trip to the NCAA super regionals, where they will take on Texas A&M in a three-game series beginning Friday.

"I don't think there are a lot of people who filled out their brackets with this in mind," Cooke said with a wide smile beneath his Davidson ball cap.

"Everyone loves an underdog, right?" added O'Linger. "So that's kind of our mentality right now."

NCAA Division I teams are allowed a maximum of 11.7 scholarships to divide among their 35 players. Teams in the Atlantic 10 Conference hand out an average of nine. Davidson, however, gives only 2.44 scholarships, putting it at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the overall talent pool.

"If you think of traditional baseball powers and start at the top, Davidson is not on that first page. Or second page. Or third page. Or fourth page," said associate head coach Rucker Taylor, who helped lead the team while Cooke was recovering from injuries. "So this is a pretty unique thing."

This is a team that clearly takes on the personality of its head coach, who clearly knows a thing or two about overcoming long odds.

Cooke talked to his team once about the accident prior to the 2013 season, telling them in an emotional speech that the recovery had been harder than expected, but that he was going to keep battling through it and persevere. He hasn't talked about it much since, but the players are all familiar with his story.

"I think it is something that has made me a more patient person," Cooke said. "My guys know that if you miss a cutoff man, or make a bad pitch, it's not the end of the world."

The Wildcats (35-24) seem to carry Cooke's relaxed, no-worries demeanor onto the field. There is little that rattles them - even playing in front of North Carolina's crowd in regionals.

"We are playing with a lot of confidence and we are really loose," said Rucker. "There's not a lot of stress out there."

If Davidson upsets Texas A&M (39-21) on the road it won't be the first time the small school has grabbed national headlines.

In 1992, the men's soccer team reached the Final Four, and in 2008 Stephen Curry led the Wildcats basketball team to the Elite 8. Curry, now playing in the NBA Finals with the Golden State Warriors, has followed the team on social media.

"It's amazing obviously for Davidson athletics to have some baseball representation," Curry said. "One more step to Omaha."

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Associated Press