June 23, 2008

By Tom Haley, Rutland Herald

RUTLAND, Vt. -- Todd Carroll will bring his style of aggressive base running to the baseball program at College of St. Joseph (Vt.) with hopes of someday challenging Fisher (Mass.) College's supremacy in the Sunrise Conference.

Carroll was announced as the Fighting Saints baseball coach Tuesday (June 18), replacing Jim Graffam.

This summer Carroll is the coach of the Bennington Bombers in the New York Collegiate Baseball League and since January he has been an associate scout for Major League Baseball's scouting bureau, evaluating prospects and filing reports for all 30 major league teams.

He coached pitchers and catcher at UMass-Boston from 2001 to 2003, has been the pitching and catching coach at Salem Community College and was named pitching coach at Harvard University in 2005.

But it is the line he is about to put on his resume at CSJ that really excites him.

"I feel it is a place that wants the campus to grow and I think athletics is a great way to grow the student body," Carroll said.

The Saints program is still very young and has known little but futility while borrowing fields here and there for practices and games. The Saints did not play a single home game in 2008.

But Carroll is undaunted.

"I think it is a program that can be turned around and turned around quickly," he said.

He does want to work toward bringing an on-campus baseball diamond to CSJ eventually.

"I think it's critical," Carroll said.

But he feels it is way down on his list of priorities at this time.

He said his first order of business is recruiting and swelling the roster to 25 to 30 players.

"We expect that with his extensive background, he will be able to move the program forward in a timely fashion and address the recruitment goals needed to have a more competitive team," CSJ Athletic Director Mark Benetatos said.

Carroll said that while his expertise at Harvard, in the Cape Cod League and on his other stops has revolved around pitching and catching, he knows as a head coach he must be responsible for all areas of the game. That's why his tenure at the helm of the Bombers this summer is great training for the CSJ job.

He can be expected to use his connections in the Greater Boston area for some of his recruiting.

"I'm a Boston guy," said Carroll, who graduated from Burlington (Mass.) High School and UMass-Boston.

But he will focus a great deal on Vermont during recruiting.

"I want to do it with Vermont kids," he said.

Veteran Mount Anthony Union High School baseball coach Al Plante is helping him with the Bombers and Carroll is hoping that will help carve a niche for him in southern Vermont.

The baseball coaching position at CSJ is not full time. Carroll said he has applied for some positions at the school and if nothing works out there, will be looking at other opportunities in the Rutland area.

He is hopeful that once he is established in the community, he will be able to work out something that will give his team a field for home games. One possibility, he said, is running youth clinics in exchange for some field time.

Carroll said he wants to have the Saints play an aggressive brand of baseball that will include running the bases to put pressure on the defense.

"We want to be aggressive on the base paths and be difficult to play against," he said.

He knows he must first attract players that can set that plan in motion.

"Recruiting is the lifeblood of a program," he said.

It is all with an eye toward winning baseball and challenging Scott Dulin's Fisher College team that has dominated the Sunrise Conference, this year going 34-23 and 14-1 in the Sunrise.

"Scott has done a great job there," Carroll said.

"We hope to challenge them and get to the big dance," Carroll said.

Getting to the big dance means the NAIA tournament and the showcase event at the end, the NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho.

There are plenty of hurdles to be cleared down that road.

But Carroll is coming to Rutland with the idea of making it happen.