University of Georgia Athletics
Quick Chat: Sean Kenny
April 24, 2020 | Baseball, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Georgia pitching coach Sean Kenny is a guy that loves coming in to work every single day. He's a baseball guy through and through and being at the ballpark is being in his happy place.
Of course, it helps when you're working with great players and the Bulldogs, who were ranked No. 2 when the season was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, had a lot of them. Most notable among them were the two pitching aces, Emerson Hancock and Cole Wilcox. who are rated among the top 25 prospects in the 2020 MLB Draft.
Kenny, from Ann Arbor, Mich., was a pitcher at Eastern Michigan, where he also got a degree in literature. He went into coaching after a brief pro career and has coached all across the country. During a recent Quick Chat, he talked about his days as a pitcher, getting into coaching, working with Hancock and Wilcox and much more.
Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: How would you describe yourself as a player?
Kenny: I think the best way I could put it is, I was a good college player and a very average professional player. You find that out the hard way the first day of spring training when you look around and think, uh-oh, I'm maybe not quite as good as I thought. I was a right-handed reliever in professional baseball and there were a million of me. I was a good college player and a dime-a-dozen pro player.
Frierson: What is it like when you come to that realization? Was that a hard thing to process?
Kenny: I think probably deep down I knew before then. I don't remember ever feeling bummed out about it, I think I just really enjoyed the (pro) experience. Emerson Hancock actually asked me this the other day, he asked me about what professional baseball was like, and I think what professional baseball did, even though I knew I was not a big-leaguer, I knew, but it kind of made me fall in love with baseball.
You'd think you would have before, as a player, but I was a basketball player in high school and thought maybe I'd be a high school basketball coach and teacher. Professional baseball, even though I knew I wasn't good enough to make it to the big leagues, kind of made me love baseball because it was such an everyday deal and being around the guys.
Just talking to the other guys and talking to the guys that I knew were going to be big-leaguers, and just being around them, it made me realize that I don't ever not want to be part of a locker room or clubhouse ever again. It's just something I want to be a part of all the time.
Frierson: You're from Michigan but it seems like all your early coaching jobs were in California, so how did you get started out there?
Kenny: My dad took a job in the Bay Area my senior year of high school. I stayed and my mom and younger brother stayed in Ann Arbor, and then when I graduated high school they moved to California and my brother went to high school out there.
When I got done in pro ball, all my connections for whatever reason in the coaching ranks were through my brother's high school coach, a California guy. That was my option to coach and I got a job at St. Mary's College, in the Bay Area, coaching outfielders. They had a very cool master's centered around coaches and high school teachers, so the fit was perfect.
Frierson: How hard is it to leave Pepperdine University, where you coached for a number of years? On the list of beautiful college campuses, Pepperdine is right around the top of the list.
Kenny: [Laughs] Our recruiting pitch was, we would sit you in our first-base dugout and you'd be staring at palm trees and the Pacific Ocean. And on a good day you could see Catalina, the island, so we didn't have to sell much. And Pamela Anderson walks around our campus for her workouts.
The easiest way I can answer your question is, nobody can afford to live there [laughs]. It's what I tell everybody, if you want a lawn you can't live in California. But it is an amazing place. I lived in Santa Monica for a couple of years and I lived through the canyon in Agoura Hills, so for a couple of years, I'm driving (to and from work) along the Pacific Coast Highway and a couple of years I'm driving through this unbelievable canyon. It's a fantastic place.
Frierson: You're a baseball player that got a degree in literature and I'm betting that's not the norm.
Kenny: I did think that I was going to be a high school teacher and coach. Eastern Michigan has one of the best schools of education in the country, so that was easy for me, it was just five miles down the road from where I grew up. Writing papers and reading were always easy for me, where math was not, so it's just something that stuck.
I did get a coaching minor, so I wasn't as smart as it looks, but it was something that always stuck. I still read a lot now and it's just something that I've always enjoyed.
Frierson: What is the best meal you've ever had? Is there one that stands out above the rest?
Kenny: You know what, there's a place in Maui, I think it's called Mama's Fish House or something like that, and everybody knows where it is. It by far stands out and I'm not a huge seafood guy. Oh man, it was unbelievable.
You're sitting on the ocean in Maui, which is great, but the food trumps all of that. And if you can trump the view in Maui then that's a pretty good meal.
Frierson: Do you have a creative side? Is there anything creative you do or wish you could do?
Kenny: No, and my wife likes to point that out. I have no other skills other than coaching baseball [laughs].
Frierson: You've got some time now to maybe cultivate some things.
Kenny: I'm painting anything I can get my hands on, and that's all I can do, because everybody can do that. I've painted a table, a chair, I'm doing touchup on the walls, I've painted the concrete in our unfinished basement so it looks a little better — it's out of control.
Frierson: What are you going to do when you run out of things to paint?
Kenny: I don't know, but that's all I can do. I can't fix anything, I can't hammer a nail, so I don't know, I really don't.
Frierson: How have you handled an April that's not spent in a dugout?
Kenny: I'm a little bit of a delayed-reaction guy and it almost hasn't hit me, the magnitude of what's going on outside and the stuff you see on TV. I guess the way I handle it is I almost pretend like it's not really happening. I've never had this much time before and I'm driving my wife crazy because I don't stay at home very well.
I play golf which is good because I can get out a little bit, but I don't handle all this very well. It's weird and it's tough, for sure.
Frierson: If you could go anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go?
Kenny: I'm boring, I don't want to leave the continental United States. I feel like I've been almost everywhere because of baseball and that's something that's so cool, that I've been so many places now, so many different schools.
I've lived in California, I've lived in the Midwest, I've lived in the Mid-Atlantic and now I live in the South — I've been really fortunate and I feel like I have the lay of the land pretty good.
Frierson: One last baseball question, when you have guys like Emerson and Cole, guys that might be once-in-a-career pitchers, how hard is it to not get to work with them for this whole season? Is there a sense of loss because the season ended after 18 games?
Kenny: Yes, absolutely there is. I told a scout today, we've all coached good players and we'll coach good players again, especially at Georgia, but the combination that they bring — great people, great students, great teammates, great workers — they're everything you want your players to be, and they happen to be our best players.
I think it's fair to say that it's once-in-a-career; I've been doing it 24 years and I've never had that. Back to the delayed reaction, I think when this thing breaks and we get back to work, that's probably when it will hit me, that I won't get to coach those two guys again — and that will be tough. ...
I think one thing that will always stand out for me is how much they love Georgia and how much they wanted to win for Georgia.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Â
Staff Writer
Georgia pitching coach Sean Kenny is a guy that loves coming in to work every single day. He's a baseball guy through and through and being at the ballpark is being in his happy place.
Of course, it helps when you're working with great players and the Bulldogs, who were ranked No. 2 when the season was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, had a lot of them. Most notable among them were the two pitching aces, Emerson Hancock and Cole Wilcox. who are rated among the top 25 prospects in the 2020 MLB Draft.
Kenny, from Ann Arbor, Mich., was a pitcher at Eastern Michigan, where he also got a degree in literature. He went into coaching after a brief pro career and has coached all across the country. During a recent Quick Chat, he talked about his days as a pitcher, getting into coaching, working with Hancock and Wilcox and much more.
Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: How would you describe yourself as a player?
Kenny: I think the best way I could put it is, I was a good college player and a very average professional player. You find that out the hard way the first day of spring training when you look around and think, uh-oh, I'm maybe not quite as good as I thought. I was a right-handed reliever in professional baseball and there were a million of me. I was a good college player and a dime-a-dozen pro player.
Frierson: What is it like when you come to that realization? Was that a hard thing to process?
Kenny: I think probably deep down I knew before then. I don't remember ever feeling bummed out about it, I think I just really enjoyed the (pro) experience. Emerson Hancock actually asked me this the other day, he asked me about what professional baseball was like, and I think what professional baseball did, even though I knew I was not a big-leaguer, I knew, but it kind of made me fall in love with baseball.
You'd think you would have before, as a player, but I was a basketball player in high school and thought maybe I'd be a high school basketball coach and teacher. Professional baseball, even though I knew I wasn't good enough to make it to the big leagues, kind of made me love baseball because it was such an everyday deal and being around the guys.
Just talking to the other guys and talking to the guys that I knew were going to be big-leaguers, and just being around them, it made me realize that I don't ever not want to be part of a locker room or clubhouse ever again. It's just something I want to be a part of all the time.
Frierson: You're from Michigan but it seems like all your early coaching jobs were in California, so how did you get started out there?
Kenny: My dad took a job in the Bay Area my senior year of high school. I stayed and my mom and younger brother stayed in Ann Arbor, and then when I graduated high school they moved to California and my brother went to high school out there.
When I got done in pro ball, all my connections for whatever reason in the coaching ranks were through my brother's high school coach, a California guy. That was my option to coach and I got a job at St. Mary's College, in the Bay Area, coaching outfielders. They had a very cool master's centered around coaches and high school teachers, so the fit was perfect.
Frierson: How hard is it to leave Pepperdine University, where you coached for a number of years? On the list of beautiful college campuses, Pepperdine is right around the top of the list.
Kenny: [Laughs] Our recruiting pitch was, we would sit you in our first-base dugout and you'd be staring at palm trees and the Pacific Ocean. And on a good day you could see Catalina, the island, so we didn't have to sell much. And Pamela Anderson walks around our campus for her workouts.
The easiest way I can answer your question is, nobody can afford to live there [laughs]. It's what I tell everybody, if you want a lawn you can't live in California. But it is an amazing place. I lived in Santa Monica for a couple of years and I lived through the canyon in Agoura Hills, so for a couple of years, I'm driving (to and from work) along the Pacific Coast Highway and a couple of years I'm driving through this unbelievable canyon. It's a fantastic place.
Frierson: You're a baseball player that got a degree in literature and I'm betting that's not the norm.
Kenny: I did think that I was going to be a high school teacher and coach. Eastern Michigan has one of the best schools of education in the country, so that was easy for me, it was just five miles down the road from where I grew up. Writing papers and reading were always easy for me, where math was not, so it's just something that stuck.
I did get a coaching minor, so I wasn't as smart as it looks, but it was something that always stuck. I still read a lot now and it's just something that I've always enjoyed.
Frierson: What is the best meal you've ever had? Is there one that stands out above the rest?
Kenny: You know what, there's a place in Maui, I think it's called Mama's Fish House or something like that, and everybody knows where it is. It by far stands out and I'm not a huge seafood guy. Oh man, it was unbelievable.
You're sitting on the ocean in Maui, which is great, but the food trumps all of that. And if you can trump the view in Maui then that's a pretty good meal.
Frierson: Do you have a creative side? Is there anything creative you do or wish you could do?
Kenny: No, and my wife likes to point that out. I have no other skills other than coaching baseball [laughs].
Frierson: You've got some time now to maybe cultivate some things.
Kenny: I'm painting anything I can get my hands on, and that's all I can do, because everybody can do that. I've painted a table, a chair, I'm doing touchup on the walls, I've painted the concrete in our unfinished basement so it looks a little better — it's out of control.
Frierson: What are you going to do when you run out of things to paint?
Kenny: I don't know, but that's all I can do. I can't fix anything, I can't hammer a nail, so I don't know, I really don't.
Frierson: How have you handled an April that's not spent in a dugout?
Kenny: I'm a little bit of a delayed-reaction guy and it almost hasn't hit me, the magnitude of what's going on outside and the stuff you see on TV. I guess the way I handle it is I almost pretend like it's not really happening. I've never had this much time before and I'm driving my wife crazy because I don't stay at home very well.
I play golf which is good because I can get out a little bit, but I don't handle all this very well. It's weird and it's tough, for sure.
Frierson: If you could go anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go?
Kenny: I'm boring, I don't want to leave the continental United States. I feel like I've been almost everywhere because of baseball and that's something that's so cool, that I've been so many places now, so many different schools.
I've lived in California, I've lived in the Midwest, I've lived in the Mid-Atlantic and now I live in the South — I've been really fortunate and I feel like I have the lay of the land pretty good.
Frierson: One last baseball question, when you have guys like Emerson and Cole, guys that might be once-in-a-career pitchers, how hard is it to not get to work with them for this whole season? Is there a sense of loss because the season ended after 18 games?
Kenny: Yes, absolutely there is. I told a scout today, we've all coached good players and we'll coach good players again, especially at Georgia, but the combination that they bring — great people, great students, great teammates, great workers — they're everything you want your players to be, and they happen to be our best players.
I think it's fair to say that it's once-in-a-career; I've been doing it 24 years and I've never had that. Back to the delayed reaction, I think when this thing breaks and we get back to work, that's probably when it will hit me, that I won't get to coach those two guys again — and that will be tough. ...
I think one thing that will always stand out for me is how much they love Georgia and how much they wanted to win for Georgia.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Â
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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