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August 15, 2009

Heller stays in Missouri Valley, makes ISU home

By Todd Golden

TERRE HAUTE — When the Indiana State baseball job opened up on July 31, Rick Heller was already packed up and ready to go.

On his way to his new job … as a Creighton assistant coach.

The former Northern Iowa coach had weighed his options after the UNI baseball program was eliminated after the 2009 season concluded. When Creighton head coach Ed Servais got booster support to add him to the Bluejays staff, he decided Creighton was the destination for him.

Until the head coaching job at ISU opened up. Then it was time to scramble.

Two weeks and three interviews later, Heller was introduced as ISU’s coach on Friday. His is the 28th coach in the Sycamores’ 113-year baseball history.

“We didn’t even unpack our stuff. We rolled the dice, kept our stuff in a POD, and we’ve been living out of a box ever since,” said Heller, whose house in Cedar Falls, Iowa, had already been sold and occupied by its new owner. Heller said the U-Haul was packed and on the move to the Omaha area when Lindsay Meggs left ISU to take the job at Washington.

Heller said he “camped out” at a friend’s house until his situation was determined. But the ISU job was one he was willing to sacrifice for.

“I wasn’t going to take just any job. After 22 years as a head coach at two places where it was difficult to have success, I felt like the next job I took would be a perfect fit. One where the athletic director wanted to see success as well as the upper administration, who cared about athletics and wanted to run it in a family environment,” Heller said. “The whole situation is absolutely perfect for me.”

Contract details have not been finalized. ISU Director of Athletics Ron Prettyman said particulars will be ironed out next week, though he said it was likely to be a 5-year contract.

Heller beat out a field of four finalists. Lincoln Trail coach Mitch Hannahs, ex-Tennessee coach Rod Delmonico and ex-East Carolina coach and current TCU recruiting coordinator Randy Mazey were the other three who nearly got the job.

“We interviewed people that had played for the final candidates, we interviewed parents of those who had played for the four final candidates, we interviewed administrators, assistant coaches, athletic directors, compliance people, secretaries, anybody who could be associated with their programs,” said Prettyman, who noted that Heller is very well-respected within the Missouri Valley Conference.

“It was not only his baseball abilities, but he was a genuine person. Their kids would come back and say, ‘He was honest with me, he said what he said he was going to do. I got better for playing for him.’ Those are the things I want to hear and they were the things that raised him to the top,” Prettyman added.

Heller has an overall record of 561-472-4 in coaching stints at Upper Iowa and Northern Iowa. He was 247-252-1 in 10 years at UNI and won one MVC Tournament championship in 2001. The UNI baseball program, long rumored to be in jeopardy of being cut, was eliminated in February.

“This press conference is a heckuva lot more fun than that last one in February,” Heller said. “[Elimination of the UNI program] was awful, I can’t imagine anything worse. We were told before our first game, in a hotel on the road, and it was brutal.

“We were able to keep the team together and they played hard to the very end. It was probably one of the most rewarding seasons of my career and I’m tougher for having gone through it. I always said there’d be a blessing out there somewhere, and I believe this is the blessing,” Heller added.

Heller stressed that the administrative support he will have at ISU is light years’ removed from what he had at UNI, in addition to the recruiting and facility advantages ISU has over his former job. UNI was the northern-most school in the MVC, played in a 63-year-old stadium 10 miles from UNI’s campus, and was not in a hotbed of baseball talent.

“It’s exciting here, because there’s tradition. The program and alumni have a lot of pride and that’s encouraging to me,” Heller said. “I have so much more support here, both financially and support-wise. Baseball is important here and that’s the biggest difference,” Heller said.

Heller said ISU would “get after it” on the diamond, but spoke more about what the ISU program will mean under his leadership off the field.

“The program I’ll run is one where academics are extremely important, where being a good citizen off the field is important, and a program where the players take ownership and be responsible,” Heller said. “That’s the way I’ve always done it. You don’t compromise values.”

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