Rod Dedeaux, whose 45 years as USC's baseball coach produced 11 national and 28 conference championship teams, died Thursday at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. He was 91.
Dedeaux, whose teams included scores of players who later attained major league greatness, including Tom Seaver, Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson and Dave Kingman, suffered a serious stroke on Dec. 2. He died of complications from the stroke.
His teams won a record 1,331 games before his retirement in 1986. From 1970 to 1974, his Trojans won five consecutive NCAA championships. No other school has won more than two in succession. He was named coach of the year six times by the American Baseball Coaches Assn. and was inducted into the organization's Hall of Fame in 1970.
As part of the 50th anniversary of the College World Series in 1996, Dedeaux was named the head coach of the all-time College World Series team. In 1999, he was named Coach of the Century by both Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball.
USC President Steven B. Sample said: "Rod Dedeaux has been a part of USC for more than 70 years, as an alumnus, as a Trojan parent and as a legendary baseball coach who mentored and inspired generations of young men, both on and off the field. He was beloved by fans, colleagues and other coaches, and he will be greatly missed."
"You'll never, ever, in our lifetime see another Rod Dedeaux," said former Dodger manager Tom Lasorda. "John Wooden was the greatest at what he did for UCLA, and you have to put Rod Dedeaux on the same level. He did for the baseball program at USC what Wooden did for basketball at UCLA. He made it a dynasty."
Sparky Anderson, who won World Series championships as manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers, grew up near USC and as a youngster was a batboy for the Trojans, learning his early baseball from Dedeaux.
"I got angry only when somebody introduced Rod as 'the greatest college baseball coach in the last 100 years,' " Anderson said Thursday. "Don't say he's the best college coach. He's one of the greatest baseball coaches in the history of our game."
Everyone was "Tiger" to Dedeaux (pronounced Day-dough), and everyone was his friend. His trademark, in recent years, was a wooden cane, shaped like a baseball bat, that he used because of an old back injury.
