#26 Terry Rooney Head Coach - Third Season with the Knights Postseason experience can mean everything in college baseball. Helping guide a program to Omaha takes a special coach and an emo onal voice. As UCF desires to return to the postseason, head coach Terry Rooney knows how to get there. In his career, he has helped lead four different universi es to the NCAA Regionals, while bringing in na onally-ranked recrui ng classes to six different schools. Head Coach at UCF Rooney was officially announced as UCF’s fi h head baseball coach on June 12, 2008, in the baseball complex’s Tradi on Room. The press conference took place in front of a packed media con ngent, showing that the city of Orlando and Knight fans everywhere are hopeful the team can make it back to the dance in the near future. The coaching staff immediately hit the recrui ng trail that summer. Rooney along with associate head coach Cliff Godwin and assistant coach Jeff Palumbo put together a class for 2010 that featured 21 players, a group that quickly gave UCF some na onal exposure. The class eventually was ranked No. 4 in the na on by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper and No. 10 by Baseball America, both of which were the highest rankings from those publicaons in UCF history. They also marked Rooney’s fourth different program where he landed a top-20 class. And the newcomers did not disappoint in 2010, as UCF served as the only school in the country to have five freshmen make at least 35 starts, including three on the infield. The Knights would finish with a 33-22 record and a 10-14 mark in Conference USA. Those would be the most overall and most CUSA victories since UCF joined the league in 2006. Those 33 wins were highlighted by a 14-game non-conference winning streak to end the campaign, including triumphs over Miami, Florida Atlan c and MEAC champion Bethune-Cookman. Along the way, the Black and Gold set school and C-USA records with a .343 team ba ng average and a .435 on-base percentage. Seniors Chris Duffy and Shane Brown were both named Louisville Slugger All-Americans and voted onto the All-C-USA First Team, as the duo both hit over .420 and ranked in the NCAA top-10 in the regular season for highest OBP. Duffy also set the UCF record with 21 homers and 81 RBI during the year. Meanwhile, Chris Taladay was selected as the C-USA Freshman of the Year, as Taladay, Darnell Sweeney and Ryan Breen had the top three ba ng averages of all freshmen in the enre conference. On the mound, Joe Rogers earned a spot on the All-Freshman Team thanks to eight saves and 43 strikeouts in 48.0 innings. And Taladay, Breen and Rogers all were selected as Louisville Slugger Freshman All-Americans. Following the 2010 season, Collegiate Baseball Newspaper once again honored the Knights by ranking the incoming recrui ng class for the 2011 campaign No. 20 in the country. In his first year at the helm of the Knights, Rooney helped the program to numerous firsts during 2009. The team set program marks in single-game a endance average, largest single-game crowd and highest-a ended weekend series. UCF recorded its highest combined team GPA and its best cumula ve spring GPA as well. Four student-athletes went on to earn postseason recogni on by the league, as Brandon Romans and Brown were selected to the All-C-USA Second Team, and Beau Taylor (a Freshman All-American) and D.J. Hicks were placed on the C-USA All-Freshman Team. On the mound, Caleb Graham grabbed the C-USA Pitcher of the Week award by blanking No. 2 Rice in a 5-0 victory, as the staff combined for a 3.92 ERA in its final nine games of the year. Rooney, LSU and the College World Series Before the 2009 campaign, Rooney had 12 years of experience as an assistant coach at the Division I level, highlighted by two campaigns at LSU from 2007-08. Serving as the pitching coach and recrui ng coordinator under head coach Paul Mainieri, Rooney and the Tigers made a remarkable run to the College World Series in 2008. LSU went on to win
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2011 UCF Baseball Yearbook
23-straight games, including cruising through the conference tournament with a 4-0 record. The team lost just one game in the NCAA Tournament en route to Omaha. LSU completed the 2008 season with a 49-19-1 record and was ranked as high as No. 2 in the country. Rooney’s pitching staff was among the best in the country as well. The Tigers walked just 201 ba ers while striking out 554, and they combined to post a team ERA of 4.11. They finished in the top 25 in the country in ERA and least amount of walks per nine innings (2.89).
THE ROONEY FILE Born: Nov. 29, 1973, in Quincy, Mass. High School: Robinson Secondary School, Fairfax, Va. College Educa on: Radford, 1996; bachelor’s degree in social science Playing Career: Pitcher - Davis & Elkins College, 1993 Pitcher - Radford, 1994-96 Coaching Career: Assistant coach - Staunton Braves (Valley League), 1996 Assistant coach - Cotuit Ke eleers (Cape Cod League), 1997 Assistant coach - George Washington, 1997 Head coach - Waynesboro (Va.) Generals (Valley League), 1998 Assistant coach - James Madison, 1998-99 Assistant coach - Old Dominion, 2000-01 Assistant coach - Stetson, 2002-03 Assistant coach - Notre Dame, 2003-06 Assistant coach - LSU, 2007 Associate head coach - LSU, 2008 Head coach - UCF, 2008-Present
THE MLB DraŌ A total of 37 of Rooney’s pitchers have been selected in the MLB Dra , with 10 taken in the first 10 rounds. Four LSU pitchers were tabbed in the 2008 dra , and five pitchers that he mentored at Notre Dame from 2003-06 also were selected. Meanwhile, 2009 con nued Rooney’s track record of developing arms as two former Irish hurlers, John Axford and Jeff Manship, debuted in the Major Leagues. Academics Rooney’s student-athletes have excelled in the classroom as well. A total of 23 UCF players were named to the C-USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll in both 2009 and 2010 and Gil Gomez (‘09) and Nick Cicio (‘10) earned the Academic Medal with a GPA above 3.75. Meanwhile, UCF has had at least a 3.0 team GPA every semester under Rooney, including the highest fall and sring semesters in school history. Eight LSU players garnered all-academic honors from the Southeastern Conference in 2008. While at Notre Dame, Rooney helped two players earn ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America recogni on.
RecruiƟng A na ve of Fairfax, Va., Rooney is considered one of the naon’s premier recruiters. Before coming to UCF where he already has achieved two top-20 classes, he was involved with nine recrui ng classes that were ranked among the na onal leaders, including the No. 1 class at LSU in 2008 as well as the Tigers’ 2009 newcomers which were ranked at No. 20. Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s 2006 group was rated as the country’s seventh-best class. Rooney, 37, was promoted to associate head coach at LSU in July 2007. His 2007 recrui ng class was selected as the top class in the na on by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper. The group included nine players who were picked in the Major League Baseball Dra . Notre Dame’s Pitching Coach Prior to joining the staff at LSU, Rooney was the pitching coach at Notre Dame for three years beginning in the fall of 2003. The Figh ng Irish par cipated in the NCAA Regionals every season with Rooney in the dugout, and the 2004 pitching staff posted a 3.43 ERA, good for ninth in the na on. The 2006 Irish staff, meanwhile, allowed just 18 home runs and set or ed four school pitching records. In two of his three years at ND, Rooney’s staffs were ranked in the top 20 in the na on in ERA. Twelve of Rooney’s pitchers at Notre Dame were dra ed by MLB clubs. In 2006, three Irish hurlers were selected, including Jeff Samardzija in the fi h round by the Chicago Cubs. In 2004, a pair of hurlers were taken in the top-10 rounds, marking the first me in program history two Figh ng Irish pitchers saw their name pop up in the top 10 in the same year. Days in DeLand Rooney is no stranger to the Sunshine State, as he served as the pitching coach at Stetson from 2002-03. During his me in DeLand, the Ha ers made a pair of appearances in
the NCAA Tournament Regionals and posted two 40-victory seasons. Under Rooney’s tutelage, four Stetson pitchers garnered All-Atlan c Sun Conference honors and two were taken in the MLB Dra . Rooney’s 2006 Stetson recrui ng class was ranked 12th na onally by Baseball America, the highest in the history of the program. Three members of that class were selected in the first 10 rounds of the dra . Prior to 2002 In all, Rooney’s previous seven seasons as an assistant before Stetson, Notre Dame and LSU included me serving as pitching coach with three programs - George Washington, James Madison and Old Dominion. At Old Dominion, Rooney worked with the Monarchs from 2000-01, and the team earned an NCAA Regional berth as a No. 2 seed in 2000. Four of the pitchers he coached at Old Dominion went on to professional baseball, while he recruited and signed Jus n Verlander, who is now one of the American League’s top hurlers with the Detroit Tigers. Rooney’s two years at James Madison (1998-99) included a pair of na onally-ranked recrui ng classes, as he first assumed the role of pitching coach/recrui ng coordinator in 1999. Two of his pitchers were later dra ed in the first 10 rounds, and six from the `99 class went on to sign pro contracts with three players dra ed in the top five rounds. Rooney began his coaching career in 1997 at George Washington. Rooney has experience coaching in top wood-bat summer leagues as well. He served as the head coach for Waynesboro (Va.) in 1998 when the Generals claimed the Valley League tle. Rooney also spent me as an assistant with Valley League champion Staunton (Va.) in 1996 and Cotuit in the Cape Cod League in 1997. Playing Days and the Personal File A 1996 Radford graduate with a degree in social science, Rooney pitched for three seasons. He ranks second all- me at the school with 79 appearances and posted an 8-2 career record. Rooney played one season at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia, compiling a 4-2 mark on the mound. Rooney has spoken at several coaching clinics throughout the na on, and has authored a video en tled 30 Minutes to Better Pitching - A Championship Workout. In January 2010, Rooney wrote a 13-page chapter for the book Prac ce Perfect Baseball by the American Baseball Coaches Associa on. En tled Assessing Team Strengths, he helped coaches learn how to analyze their teams by posi on and develop a prac ce plan based on their strengths and weaknesses. Rooney and his wife, Shaun, were married in December of 2007.