Chris Pollard: 5 things to know about potential South Carolina baseball coach
South Carolina is in the market for a new baseball coach after firing Mark Kingston this week.
One of the names mentioned locally and nationally as a possible replacement is Duke coach Chris Pollard.
Here are five things to know about Pollard, who has built the Blue Devils into one of the top programs in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
NC roots, program changer
Pollard has spent his entire collegiate playing and coaching career in North Carolina. He was a standout pitcher at Davidson College, where he still ranks third in school history in wins and had a victory over top-ranked Georgia Tech.
In his first head coaching job at Division II Pfeiffer, he led the school to back-to-back Carolinas-Virginia Athletic Conference championships. From there, he went to Appalachian State and led the Mountaineers to an NCAA Tournament regional appearance in his final season (2012). App State had six 30-win seasons under Pollard, something that hadn’t happened since 1986.
At Duke, Pollard has led the Blue Devils to six NCAA Tournament appearances and three super regionals in his 11 seasons. Duke hadn’t made it to the NCAA Tournament since 1961 before Pollard’s arrival or made it to a super regional since that format started in 1999.
Duke won 40 games this season for the second time under Pollard and made it to a regional final before losing to Oklahoma.
Has drawn interest before
After last season, ACC foe Miami showed interest in Pollard but he opted to stay with the Blue Devils and earned a reworked contract and promises of further investment in the Blue Devils program.
“The best advice I’ve gotten is, don’t mess with happy,” Pollard told the News & Observer last June. “At the end of the day, that’s what it came down to. We’re very happy here and I don’t want to mess with that.”
One of those investments is improving 1,863-seat Jack Coombs Field, which was built in 1931. The stadium’s need for upgrades might have been a reason the Blue Devils didn’t host a regional this year despite a strong case. (Duke was a No. 2 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament and played in the Oklahoma regional.) In the past, Duke was able to NCAA Tournament games at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, the Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. They weren’t able to use that facility this year because of a scheduling conflict if they had been selected to host a regional.
Renovations to Jack Coombs Field are expected to start this month.
Putting guys in MLB Draft
Since Pollard got to Duke in 2013, 40 players have been selected in the Major League Baseball Draft, including a program-tying seven in 2017. The highest of those was Bryce Jarvis, who went to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first round back in 2020. It was only Duke’s third first-round pick since 1976.
Duke is expected to add to that total this year. Jonathan Santucci is ranked No. 34 in latest MLB Pipeline rankings for 2024 MLB Draft. The Blue Devils had seven all-ACC selections for the first time in school history
#BlueCollar mantra
Pollard is big on the phrase “Blue Collar” and uses it as a hashtag in his social media posts. He established that mantra early on during his time at Duke and talked about it during the College Baseball Central podcast earlier this year.
“We talk about blue collar and people ask what does it mean? You have that hashtag on social media,” Pollard said. “It is a nod to my dad, who was a blue collar man. He got up at 4:45 a.m. six days a week and grinded it out for 33 years. We try to have that approach with our program.
“We talk about four principles to our blue collar culture. We want to have a process over outcome mentality. We want guys to be more worried about the process instead of results. We talk about servant leadership and how to be a great teammate and feed in to the guys around you. We talk about gratitude because it is such an important and key ingredient to keep away self entitlement. Lastly, we talk about a growth mindset. We embrace hard because it makes us better and tougher. We don’t hide from hard.”
Ability to adapt
Pollard has been outspoken about the need to be willing to adapt in today’s college climate. That showed last season as he hit the transfer portal hard, signing 12 transfers such as former all-Big 12 freshman selection Wallace Clark. Three of this year’s transfers were from the Ivy League, which fits Duke academic standards and doesn’t allow for players to play five seasons in college.
If he were to land at USC, there’d be less pressure to meet those tougher academic standards when he recruits.
