Brad Bass was shocked when told he was selected for induction into the Wayland Baptist University Athletics Hall of Honor. "I had to pull off the side of the road. It had never crossed my mind that that was something people would consider me for. I knew they were considering (induction) for my players, but it never even crossed my mind to even be considered for something like that while I was still working. It was overwhelming."
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Brad Bass' name is synonymous with Wayland Baptist baseball, having served as head coach for the last 26 of the program's 30 years. Bass' teams have recorded 16 winning seasons and won 1,021 games, including 763 at Wayland. The Pioneers presented him with milestone victory No. 1,000 on Feb. 6, 2021.
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(NOTE: Brad Bass will be inducted into the WBU Athletics Hall of Honor – along with Todd Jeffress, Kim Kayler Clemmons, Dr. Sylvia Nadler and Joe & Freda Provence – at 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 6 inside the Pete & Nelda Laney Center. Tim Thomas will receive the Harley Redin Coach's Award. Admission is free. Live streaming at www.wbuathletics.com/watch.)
Bass had much the same response for that landmark win as he does to being selected into the WBU Athletics Hall of Honor. "I didn't get a hit, didn't throw a pitch for any of those wins. And the Hall of Honor is the same thing. Coaches do not get awards for what they do (but) for what everybody does around them. There are a whole bunch of people who did a lot of things in order for this to happen and be possible. Between all of the players and all-Americans and the occasional guy who got to play some professional baseball…and a whole bunch of other people, too."
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Ever humble, Bass continued about his Hall of Honor selection: "They put people in like Harley Redin who won tons of games in a row, or who won lots of championships. Yeah, we've won a lot of games but never a championship. That said, it's for sure appreciated. This is a huge deal."
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Originally from the Waco area, Bass was an outfielder on the 1978 Junior College World Series championship team at Ranger Junior College. He continued his playing career at Hardin-Simmons University and after graduating from HSU in 1984 served as an assistant coach for five years. He took over the reins as head coach at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth where he helped rebuild a baseball field and where his teams posted a 258-182-1 record.
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Bass arrived on the Wayland campus four years after the Pioneers began a baseball program in 1992. At the time they played on an off-campus, city-owned field, Jaycee Park, which was shared with Plainview High School. "Part of my attraction to Wayland was having a field across town that the city took care of, but after about a month of being here Dr. Feris (then athletics director Dr. Greg Feris) threw a file on my desk and said, 'We're going to build a field on-campus.' That's how Wilder Field came about," said Bass said, who considered Wilder Field a labor of love.
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Things weren't always ideal in the early years at Wayland. "My first year we didn't have enough guys to play an intra-squad game," Bass recalled. "I asked Kendall Walling (the Plainview High School coach) if I could borrow some of his guys. But after the first year it never happened again. We've always had at least enough guys for two or three games."
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The Pioneers had one winning season prior to Bass' arrival. His first team at Wayland won only 10 of 50 games and went 1-15 in conference, but by year two the Pioneers went 13-11 in league play. Six years after that Bass and the Pioneers enjoyed back-to-back conference runner-up titles in 2003 and '04.
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In total, Bass' teams have forged 16 winning seasons, including seven of the last eight. His 2016 team produced a program-record 45 victories and qualified for the NAIA National Championships opening round for the second time in team history. The first time was in 2009 when they were one win away from the NAIA World Series. Both the 2008 and '09 teams produced 43 victories and were ranked in the NAIA Top 25 at No. 13 and No. 18. Going into the 2021 season, Bass ranked ninth among active NAIA coaches in wins and 23rd all-time.
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As successful as Bass' teams have been on the field, it's the impact they've had off the field that means the most to the coach. For years players participated in a Hale County Literacy Council program and read books with local first-grade students. They've also served as "big brothers" to elementary students, traveling to their school campuses once a week in order to provide a much-needed male role model. At other times the baseball program has offered free summer camps to needy kids. Most recently, Bass has directed his program to help with hurricane relief efforts in the Houston area.
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As a result of all of those efforts, the WBU baseball program was named the inaugural winner of the Sooner Athletic Conference's Champions of Character Team Award in 2019. "It's always been important for our program to have activities like our hurricane relief efforts and the mentor program, where our guys are in touch with the community. The guys in our program have always been good with that," Bass said.
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In the summer of 2021, Bass accepted a position as the head baseball coach at Arlington Baptist University, in large part to be closer to family, including an ailing mother as well as his first grandchild. "There seemed to be more and more of a need and more and more of a desire to do that," Bass said. Still, the decision to move on, wasn't easy. "I was crying like a baby every time I turned around. Walking away from Wilder (Field), with my fingerprints all over it, that really didn't seem to be a problem. It was the people – the connections, especially the ballplayers – that was hard…and it's still hard."
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It should come as no surprise that the Wayland memories Bass will hold dearest don't involve victories or championships or really any on-field occurrences. His fondest memories all have to do with personal relationships. "I'm most proud of: just seeing how (former players) turn out. When those guys pull up to the park and you haven't seen them in 10 years, and they have a wife and kids and they run around on the field… Baseball is just a common denominator, the thing God used to get us together. We just met at the field every day. It was a lot of fun going to BP and to games, but that's nothing compared to just sitting in the dugout talking."
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Bass coaching philosophy also revolves around relationships. "You're not going to make your money on how you coach the superstar. You're going to make your money on how you treat the guy at the end of the bench. That guy is going to be needed some time and you need to have him ready. He's there because he loves the school and loves the game and loves the program, and you should treat him with value and purpose. That's a huge, huge part of being a coach."
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Bass, who at 26 years is the second-longest tenured coach in Wayland history after only legendary basketball coach Harley Redin's 27 years, views his career as a calling, regardless of where he does it. "I'm just going from blue and gold to red, white and blue, from Plainview to Arlington. I'll still be a baseball coach cause that's what He called me to do. As long as He can use me I'll keep working."
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