ASHLAND – There is a patch of turf on a baseball field off Katherine Avenue that is unlike any other patch on any other baseball field in the country.
It’s the third-base coach’s box at Donges Field, and it’s where John Schaly steps into his office.
Now in his 28th season guiding the Ashland University baseball program – and 38th overall as a college head coach – rarely does a spring pass when Schaly doesn’t hit some kind of milestone.
A decade ago, he reached 1,000 career wins. Last spring, he coached in his 2,000th career game.
Some records take time, some take talent, some take both.
On Saturday, Schaly arrived at a pinnacle never before reached with a victory that pushed him into yet another echelon of baseball history.
In an 8-5 win against visiting Walsh, he took over sole possession of the NCAA Division II all-time wins record (1,325), through last Saturday’s game.
As he always has through the years when individual achievements arrive, he tried to downplay it.
But holding an engraved, golden bat presented to him by Ashland director of athletics Al King to mark the day, Schaly stood in front of the Eagles dugout and a gathered audience of AU baseball fans and had nowhere to hide.
In total, his speech was less than a minute. He clearly would have rather been preparing for Ashland’s next game.
“I told our guys right here in the huddle, I’ve never gotten a base hit, never made a play, never made a big pitch to get out of a jam,” said Schaly of his coaching career, which currently spans 2,059 games (1,325-727-7). “Players through the years made all those plays – talented players, guys who were willing to buy into our system, work hard, have a great work ethic, be great leaders.”
“One guy can’t do it (alone), there’s no way, it’s impossible,” he said. “… This is for everybody.”
There was a line of alumni waiting to congratulate him. Former players alongside their families who knew the significance of Saturday for the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer.
Jacob Petkac, one of the best players in AU baseball history and a huge part of Ashland’s 2008 World Series team, said it was pouring rain when he left his house in Columbus on Saturday morning. But he made sure he was along the third-base line to see it.
“There were 10 or 15 alumni in a text thread who said, ‘Hey, we’re going. This could be the day,’” Petkac said. “I’m sure my phone’s blowing up right now with messages for his accomplishment. We’re super proud of him and we’re proud to play for him.
“The history he made today is unbelievable and it’s awesome to be a part of it.”
Among active coaches in all of college baseball, only two have more wins than Schaly – South Carolina’s Paul Mainieri (1,521-782-7 in 40 total seasons) and Georgia Tech’s Danny Hall (1,427-778-1 in 38 seasons).
If there was a Mount Rushmore featuring the best coaches in the history of Ohio college baseball, Schaly is on it.
There’s no argument at this point. The numbers say it.
King, the only person right now who has had a longer tenure within the AU athletic department than Schaly, was on the search committee when Ashland hired him in 1998.
He knew the significance of Saturday, too.
“For you guys who are here today to play, you’ll remember this 20, 25, 30 years down the road,” King said after the game to the gathered players. “We’re gonna win games, we may win championships, but you’ll never have something like this again, where you get a guy who’s been around this long, won this many games and sets a record on the national level like this.”
It was almost 10 years to the day that Schaly got his 1,000th collegiate victory. That feat helped him join his late father, Don Schaly, to become the first father-son combination to each win at least 1,000 games at four-year institutions.
Don did it at NCAA Division III Marietta College.
In 40 years from 1964 through 2003, he was 1,438-329-13, claiming three national titles (his first in 1981 with John as an All-American on the team). His .812 winning percentage is second in the history of college baseball and his win total is third in the history of Division III.
To this day, John wears his father’s No. 50 jersey. They would be side-by-side on that aforementioned Mount Rushmore.
“My dad was the biggest influence in my life,” John said Saturday, “and I knew at a young age that I wanted to be a college coach because of what he did and just the way he taught things and the program he ran.
“I’ve picked up things from other people, too, but 80 percent of the things I probably got from him.”
Add in his younger brother, Joe Schaly, who is currently in his 32nd season at Thiel College (637-640-1 career record), and Saturday’s victory gave the Schaly family exactly 3,400 wins combined in more than 5,100 games of coaching college baseball.
It’s a fascinating lineage on the diamond.
Don is 11th on NCAA baseball’s all-time wins list. With another 24 victories himself, John will be in the Top 20.
He’s led Ashland to the NCAA Tournament 19 times, posted 30-win seasons 21 times, made the College World Series (equal to the Elite Eight) five times and has had just one losing season in nearly three decades with the Eagles.
Schaly said he’s interviewed for four or five Division I coaching jobs during his career. There’s no doubt he would have had plenty of success at that level as well, but he said getting the chance to play in the World Series for a shot at a national title has trumped all other coaching scenarios.
Current AU assistant coach Seth Schroeder played five seasons under Schaly and was on the Eagle team that made the World Series in 2019.
“He just goes out there and tries to be better in every facet of life,” Schroeder said. “It’s not all about winning baseball games, it’s about being good on and off the field and being a good person.”
There is no way to guess what things would look like for AU baseball today had Schaly not arrived in 1998.
When he took over, Ashland’s baseball facility was one of the worst in the league. It had a 4-foot dropoff in the right-field corner.
At that time – and up until the construction in 2009 of the Dwight Schar Athletic Complex – the Eagles were even sharing their clubhouse with the Ashland football team, which would practice on the same plot of land where AU’s softball team now plays its games.
Fast-forward to today and the importance of the Ashland baseball program to past players, coaches, alumni and community members cannot be understated.
Over the last 15 years, the facility now known as Tomassi Stadium and Donges Field at the Archer Ballpark Complex has undergone immense enhancements.
They first included a multi-phase improvement project that brought in new bleachers, a press box, an upgraded scoreboard and new dugouts.
In the last few years, a fully artificial turf playing field and enhancements to the outfield fence (among other things) helped turn the facility into one of the best for college baseball in the entire state.
King said roughly $1.3 million has been spent on upgrades during those major projects since 2011.
“You watch the current players now and the facilities they have, it’s absolutely unbelievable,” said Petkac, who added that he’s jealous of the technology the program now has at its disposal as well.
“You just want good things to happen for the university and for him,” he said.
The fact that Saturday’s weather at the field ran the gamut – from cold, gray and rainy in the morning to mild, sunny and windy by game’s end – was the perfect representation of spring weather for an AU baseball home game.
Schaly and the Eagles have seen it all through the years at the facility, and the coach has always hated nothing more than to cancel a game due to weather or poor field conditions.
One time about two decades ago when the field seemed too soaked to host a game, Schaly improvised in a way that sounds mythological today.
Up the road at Ashland High School’s Community Stadium, a helicopter was dropping Easter eggs onto the field for kids to find. Schaly asked the pilot to stop by and hover over AU’s infield to help dry up the puddles.
“It did work,” Schaly recollected. “We still had to do some work ourselves, but we played.”
The things legends will do.
Now with an artificial turf field, helicopters need not enter the Eagles’ airspace.
Recalling plenty of memories Saturday, Schaly couldn’t help but think about his family. He heaped praise on his wife, Becky, for her willingness to come along on the baseball ride.
“A coach’s work hours are pretty long and sometimes I don’t take very well to losses,” he said. “She’s been the rock and she raised our (three) kids.”
On Friday, the eve of his record-breaking day, the two welcomed their fifth granddaughter into the family.
That aspect of life is not lost on the 38-year college head coach.
“The most rewarding thing as a coach is seeing what the guys do after they graduate and move on,” Schaly said. “Being great leaders in their communities, husbands, fathers. I’m more proud of what they become after they leave here – that’s way more important (than a record for wins).”
This year’s Eagles (11-6) are trying to make the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive season. It would be the longest such run for the program since qualifying five years in a row from 2006 through 2010.
Schaly has said he’d like to be a head coach for at least 40 years, which would put him into the 2027 season, then he’ll see where things go from there.
It’s not a stretch to believe he could catch up to his father’s 1,438 win total by then.
No one who has followed AU baseball since 1998 would be surprised.
“There has to be a standard and there has to be one constant, and you’re that constant,” King said to Schaly on Saturday when highlighting the success of the Ashland program. “You’re the one who’s set the standard for all these years.”
His comments stirred up thoughts of those few minutes in the classic baseball movie “Field of Dreams,” when James Earl Jones delivers his infamous “People Will Come” speech.
“The one constant through all the years has been baseball,” Jones says. “America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”
At Ashland, on that patch of turf next to third base, it’s been very much the same.
The one constant through all the years has been Schaly.
His unparalleled success has marked the time.
