UCI’s Serrano leading by example

Parker Serrano, who like most 3-year-olds waddles as much as he runs, is frequently unleashed onto the field after UC Irvine baseball games at Anteater Ballpark. He teeters under the weight and volume of an adult batting helmet that he has taken to, much like his peers cling to their favorite blanket.

It’s never long before his dad, third-year UCI Coach Dave Serrano, scoops him up like a slow-rolling grounder, and greets him with a kiss and a squeeze. Soon thereafter, the elder Serrano greets his wife Tracy, while son Kyle, 11, is often tidying up the dugout to complete his duties as team bat boy.

Middle son Zachary, 9, is sometimes part of the postgame welcoming party as well.

It is a display that doubles as an unintentional lesson to Serrano’s players: that there are more important things than fretting over striking out three times, giving up a game-deciding home run; or even relishing the program’s first berth in the College World Series.

It is a lesson Serrano, whose passion for baseball drove him to make it his profession, learned well into his eight-year tenure as pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Cal State Fullerton.

Ironically, No. 4-ranked UCI (45-16-1) faces Cal State Fullerton (38-24) in an elimination game today at 11 a.m. at Rosenblatt Stadium.

And for all the wisdom he absorbed from coaching mentors George Horton, Augie Garrido, Wally Kincaid and Rod Delmonico — on the field and off — the aforementioned lesson was delivered with devastating results by his mother, Carole, only a few years ago.

“Probably my two biggest influences have been my mom and dad [Sam],” Serrano said. “And probably the biggest influence on my life, besides all those great coaches and mentors, was made when my mom was dying of cancer.”

The news hit Serrano like a fastball between the eyes, just before boarding a plane for Omaha with the CWS-bound Cal State Fullerton team in 2001.

“She didn’t want to call me, but she knew I was going to find out about it, and she wanted me to hear it from her that she had [pancreatic] cancer,” Serrano said.

“It made it a very tough time for me in Omaha that year. I wrote her name on the side of my cap and, like I still do to this day, every time during the National Anthem, I pick out a cloud in the sky, or if there are no clouds, a sparkle in the sky. After the anthem is over, I tap my heart, I kiss my hat and I point to the sky [to acknowledge her]. And no matter if I win, or I lose, I know I’m making her proud and that she’s with me all the way.”

His mom’s battle to survive forced Serrano to reexamine his priorities.

“I’m a guy who is pretty dedicated to baseball,” Serrano said. “But my lifestyle changed a little bit when I realized that life was more important than wins and losses and recruiting and getting a phone call from a recruit.

“The last month of her life, when she was battling for her life, I missed two weekend series, for the first time in my career, when we didn’t know how long she was going to live,” Serrano said. “Ironically, one of those series [in 2002] was at Wichita State [where the Anteaters swept a super regional earlier this month to advance to Omaha]. She passed away on March 15, 2002, and I’m so glad I missed those games to be with her. I don’t know if I could have lived with myself if I hadn’t stayed home to be with her.

“It clicked with me then that winning games and coaching is fun, and it’s important. But when it comes down to the game of life, it means nothing.”

Serrano said he tries to impart this realization to his players every chance he gets.

“I tell the guys that in the kind of postseason situations that we experienced in Round Rock [the regional], Wichita [the super regional] and Omaha [where they lost their debut to Arizona State, 5-4, on Saturday], there’s a bigger picture out there. There are things that mean so much more than when you strike out with the bases loaded, or whether or not you throw a good pitch when there are two strikes on the hitter.”

Serrano said before she died, his mom told him, as well as his older brother and his younger sister, that she would always be an angel on their shoulders.

“It may sound corny,” Serrano said, “but when we made that run to the national championship in 2004 [at Cal State Fullerton], I almost felt her presence helping guide me and that pitching staff. There have been times this season, when I felt the same thing. Like [June 10], in that 2-2 game [at Wichita State that UCI eventually won, 3-2, to advance to Omaha], I looked to the sky and said ‘If I’m worth of this, then help me.’

“I know my mom didn’t experience me winning the national championship [in 2004], she didn’t experience me getting this [UCI] job, and she didn’t experience me helping to take this team to Omaha,” Serrano said. “But she’s with me.”

Serrano said his father had his mother in mind when Sam Serrano gave Dave Serrano a congratulatory hug on the field after the June 10 victory at Wichita State.

“I could see the tears rolling down his face when he said ‘Congratulations, son,’ ” Serrano said. “And I could sense that he wasn’t just saying for himself, but he was saying it for my mom, too.”

There have been many reasons to congratulate Serrano and his program this season. The Anteaters, in their sixth season after having no program for nine seasons from 1992 to 2001, have set Division I team records for wins in a season. The Anteaters have won their first Division I postseason games (three at the regional and two at the super regional) since moving up from the Division II ranks after the 1977 campaign.

Serrano, named National Assistant Coach of the Year in 2004, was hired to replace John Savage, who left to become head coach at UCLA.

Modeling his approach after Garrido, who turned Cal State Fullerton from an afterthought into a national power in the late 1970s, Serrano and his staff set about recruiting team-oriented, athletic players who could thrive in his small-ball system.

“I didn’t take this job to be a head coach and I didn’t even go after this job,” Serrano said. “But when [Anteaters Athletic Director Bob Chichester] called, it was almost like a dream come true. “I wasn’t looking to leave Fullerton, but I saw Irvine as a diamond in the rough.”

After a 31-25 debut season in which Serrano said he was too concerned about being liked by the players and did not fully implement his philosophies, the ‘Eaters went 36-24 last season and earned a regional berth.

This season, Serrano said he sensed something special about this team as far back as February.

“I told my coaching staff and my wife way back then that if I was at Cal State Fullerton with the [UCI] I have right now, I would say pretty confidently that we’d be going to Omaha,” Serrano said. “The only thing holding me back was that this [UCI] program didn’t have the map to Omaha yet. We may not have known how to get [to Omaha], but we sure found out in a hurry.

“This team had the same characteristics of all the teams that I’ve gone to Omaha with [five previous to this year in 10 seasons as a Division I assistant],” Serrano said. “[The players] gelled as a group and they were committed to one another.”

Serrano has been committed to baseball since he was old enough to attend school.

Throwing a ball in his driveway, he wore out at least two garage doors on his families’ Cerritos home while progressing from a T-ball at age 5, to Little League, to Cerritos High, then to Cerritos College.

He was never the most talented player on the field, but he soaked in every nuance of the game, in order to maximize his limited athletic ability.

Those limitations were magnified his first two seasons under Horton at Cerritos, the first a redshirt year and the second spent languishing on the bench.

But in his final year at Cerritos, Serrano transformed himself from an over-the-top pitcher with an 83 mph fastball, to a side-arming sensation who went 12-1 with five saves.

“I was an All-American and I was able to get a scholarship to Cal State Fullerton,” Serrano said.

After one season playing for Garrido and the Titans, Serrano spent a year away from baseball. But Horton, who admired Serrano’s ability to overachieve as a player, made him a 22-year-old pitching coach at Cerritos College.

“I saw his work ethic and tenacity he had as a player,” Horton said. “And I also knew that he had great rapport with all human beings. Ultimately, it was his people skills that I thought would make him a pretty good coach and recruiter.”

It was Horton who convinced him to accept an offer to become pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Tennessee in 1995-96. And it was Horton who lured him back to Fullerton, where Serrano held the same title from 1997 through 2004.

“When Serrano came here, he accelerated the progression of the program started by Coach Savage,” said Gregg Wallis, the first player to commit to Irvine for its 2002 revival and now the program’s director of baseball operations.

“He likes to have fun and that translates into guys being really loose and really aggressive,” Wallis said. “Players love to play for him because he’s a great leader.”

Assistant Coach Nathan Choate said Serrano’s ability to motivate has helped instill confidence in his players.

“Coach Serrano has an unbelievable ability to make people believe,” Choate said.

Serrano frequently credits assistants Sergio Brown and Greg Bergeron for their role in the program’s success. Serrano said his willingness to work in the trenches with his players and coaches also serves the program as a whole.

“I don’t blame the players for the losses and I don’t take credit for the wins,” Serrano said. “I don’t have anyone carry my bag on the road and if there’s a piece of trash on the field, I pick it up. Players see me with a hose in my hand washing out the dugout after a weekend night game and they realize no one is bigger than the program.”

Rumors have circulated that Tennessee will pursue Serrano for its vacant baseball coaching job, and Serrano has refused to address any questions about those rumors, citing his focus on the Anteaters’ quest for a national title.

But Serrano spoke this week like a man not planning on going anywhere.

“I said when I took this job that in 10 or 20 years, I hoped people would think that Dave Serrano and his coaching staff are the reasons why UC Irvine is now a national contender year-in and year-out.

“We don’t need to finish the stadium for us to win a national championship, though it would help. And we don’t need to get 2,500 people at our home games to win the national championship, though it would help.

“But my ultimate job isn’t to win a national championship,” Serrano said. “My ultimate job is to help these young men be successful fathers, husbands and businessmen, because that’s what’s going to happen to 95% of them. Baseball is important, but teaching them what is important for them to prosper in life is my ultimate goal.”

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at barry.faulkner@latimes.com.