<font color="black" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: Arial;"><font title="http://kentucky.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=813584" color="blue"><span title="http://kentucky.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=813584" style="color: blue;">http://kentucky.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=813584</span></font>
</span></font>John Cohen is a man who doesn't wait for things to come to him, an aggressive baseball coach who makes 1,000 decisions a game in the matter of seconds. He attacks the game in a way only the best know how.
<table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="283"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="277">
</td> <td rowspan="4" width="6">
</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right"><font face="verdana" size="1">Jeff Drummond/CatsPause.com</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="3">
</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center"><font size="1">No one has done more for the Kentucky baseball program than Coach John Cohen but the Cats may have to fight off his alma mater to keep him this offseason.</font></td> </tr> </tbody> </table>And yet, the man may have to practice a tad bit of patience now that this blissful 2008 season comes to an end. The word around Southeastern Conference baseball circles - where passion for the game runs deeper than anywhere else - is John Cohen is going to have a decision to make that makes suicide squeeze bunting in the ninth inning look like child's play.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Cohen is going to get a call asking him to come home. The 42-year old architect of Kentucky's baseball renaissance would then have the toughest decision of his life - stay in Lexington and continue to build a national power and become a state hero or return to Mississippi State, his alma mater, and take over the coaching reins from his mentor Ron Polk.
Talk about a rock and a hard place. I certainly don't envy the man.
And Cohen knows it's coming. He's known since Polk announced his retirement before State traveled to Lexington in early April.
"It gets to me," Cohen told the Courier-Journal of Mississippi State at the time. "I grew up 80 miles from that campus. I went to school there. (I have) lots of friends and family there and people like to talk.
"Gosh, I think it's a compliment or a privilege for folks to even mention your name. I have so much respect for Ron Polk, it's such a pleasure to be around him. I look up to him so much. And quite frankly, Tommy Raffo, his assistant coach, is someone I consider to be one of my closest, dearest friends."
None of that changes the fact Cohen is - and should be - a top candidate for the job. Polk originally indicated Raffo would be his choice to follow him but rumors at the SEC Tournament had Raffo perhaps taking another league job. Oregon State coach Pat Casey was expected to be a candidate but he told local papers in Oregon he was not interested in heading to State.
That leaves Cohen as the heir apparent in such a chain of events. His work at UK, a place that has seen very little sustained success, has bordered on miraculous. He has won 173 games in five seasons at a winning percentage of .609. His teams are 118-45 at home, good for a .724 clip. He's turned in two of the program's four 40-win seasons and made two NCAA Tournaments.
Even by the lofty standards of the SEC those statistics are impressive. When you realize the Cats won just 44 percent of their games in the five years prior to his arrival, are a lifetime .612 team at home and do not have a single coach who lasted four years or more with a winning percentage higher than .535 and its downright amazing what Cohen has accomplished in such a short time.
It's what he lives and breathes for.
"Competing in the SEC, it's just a beast of a league," Cohen said last week. "I'm not ashamed to say that when I came here people doubted that Kentucky could ever be a factor in the Southeastern Conference and three out of the last three years we have been a factor in the most powerful league in the country. I'd like to think that us making a move in the SEC changes everyone's idea of Kentucky."
But how would the opinion of UK baseball change if Cohen were to pack up and leave? A new stadium is on the verge of being financed, the 2008 recruiting class is elite in status, fans are turning out in record numbers and interest is at an all-time high. Could UK afford to lose the one man who has made baseball relevant not only at the Commonwealth's flagship university but at Louisville and Western Kentucky as well?
That's the million-dollar question. Cohen and UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart met during the SEC Tournament and you can be sure Barnhart's message was something to the effect of "we'll do whatever we can to keep you" but he also knows even your best isn't always enough when people are calling you home. Put it this way, it wouldn't be all that different than Barnhart calling Arkansas coach John Pelphrey and asking him to become UK's basketball coach.
There is just something about going home that we all feel in the pit of our stomachs.
Here's hoping Cohen realizes what he's building at UK should he be forced into making a choice. You know what they say, it's always better to replace the man who replaces the man than to be the first guy and Polk is a living legend in Starkville. Would the pressure to succeed be too much? Does Cohen want to be his own man and become the Ron Polk of Kentucky?
They are all valid questions and ones that will finally force Cohen to practice a little patience. At least you would think.
<font color="black" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: Arial;">
</span></font>
</span></font>John Cohen is a man who doesn't wait for things to come to him, an aggressive baseball coach who makes 1,000 decisions a game in the matter of seconds. He attacks the game in a way only the best know how.
<table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="283"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="277">
It's becoming increasingly clear that Cohen is going to get a call asking him to come home. The 42-year old architect of Kentucky's baseball renaissance would then have the toughest decision of his life - stay in Lexington and continue to build a national power and become a state hero or return to Mississippi State, his alma mater, and take over the coaching reins from his mentor Ron Polk.
Talk about a rock and a hard place. I certainly don't envy the man.
And Cohen knows it's coming. He's known since Polk announced his retirement before State traveled to Lexington in early April.
"It gets to me," Cohen told the Courier-Journal of Mississippi State at the time. "I grew up 80 miles from that campus. I went to school there. (I have) lots of friends and family there and people like to talk.
"Gosh, I think it's a compliment or a privilege for folks to even mention your name. I have so much respect for Ron Polk, it's such a pleasure to be around him. I look up to him so much. And quite frankly, Tommy Raffo, his assistant coach, is someone I consider to be one of my closest, dearest friends."
None of that changes the fact Cohen is - and should be - a top candidate for the job. Polk originally indicated Raffo would be his choice to follow him but rumors at the SEC Tournament had Raffo perhaps taking another league job. Oregon State coach Pat Casey was expected to be a candidate but he told local papers in Oregon he was not interested in heading to State.
That leaves Cohen as the heir apparent in such a chain of events. His work at UK, a place that has seen very little sustained success, has bordered on miraculous. He has won 173 games in five seasons at a winning percentage of .609. His teams are 118-45 at home, good for a .724 clip. He's turned in two of the program's four 40-win seasons and made two NCAA Tournaments.
Even by the lofty standards of the SEC those statistics are impressive. When you realize the Cats won just 44 percent of their games in the five years prior to his arrival, are a lifetime .612 team at home and do not have a single coach who lasted four years or more with a winning percentage higher than .535 and its downright amazing what Cohen has accomplished in such a short time.
It's what he lives and breathes for.
"Competing in the SEC, it's just a beast of a league," Cohen said last week. "I'm not ashamed to say that when I came here people doubted that Kentucky could ever be a factor in the Southeastern Conference and three out of the last three years we have been a factor in the most powerful league in the country. I'd like to think that us making a move in the SEC changes everyone's idea of Kentucky."
But how would the opinion of UK baseball change if Cohen were to pack up and leave? A new stadium is on the verge of being financed, the 2008 recruiting class is elite in status, fans are turning out in record numbers and interest is at an all-time high. Could UK afford to lose the one man who has made baseball relevant not only at the Commonwealth's flagship university but at Louisville and Western Kentucky as well?
That's the million-dollar question. Cohen and UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart met during the SEC Tournament and you can be sure Barnhart's message was something to the effect of "we'll do whatever we can to keep you" but he also knows even your best isn't always enough when people are calling you home. Put it this way, it wouldn't be all that different than Barnhart calling Arkansas coach John Pelphrey and asking him to become UK's basketball coach.
There is just something about going home that we all feel in the pit of our stomachs.
Here's hoping Cohen realizes what he's building at UK should he be forced into making a choice. You know what they say, it's always better to replace the man who replaces the man than to be the first guy and Polk is a living legend in Starkville. Would the pressure to succeed be too much? Does Cohen want to be his own man and become the Ron Polk of Kentucky?
They are all valid questions and ones that will finally force Cohen to practice a little patience. At least you would think.
<font color="black" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: Arial;">
</span></font>
