Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME Mik Aoki is in his fifth year as head baseball coach at Notre Dame. His previous Division I stops in- cluded Columbia from 1999-2003 and Boston Col- lege from 2007-10. Blue & Gold Illustrated: What is a typical day like for you? Aoki: "If I'm at home, I take the kids to school, and I'm usually in the office by 8:30 a.m. Then I'll get together with the staff, plan out practice that afternoon and take care of the day-to-day stuff with the team. Sometimes you get called to meetings or interviews. "Then practice, length varies de- pending on the day. Thursdays are travel days, and Fridays through Sundays we're playing. It varies a little, but hopefully I get to go home and catch up with the kids post-school, sit down and spend a little time with my wife, watch a TV show. Then go to bed and start it over the next day." Blue & Gold Illustrated: What's been the key to your team's 11-3 start this season? Aoki: "Our compete factor's been incredibly high. Our kids have been really engaged and focused on every pitch. I don't think we've let off the gas pedal, whether we're down by runs, up, or in a tight game. "We've been able to focus on being steady, pursu- ing excellence on every pitch. I think that more than anything has led to a high level of play." Blue & Gold Illustrated: Have you noticed any major changes in the game since you've been coaching? Aoki: "A lot. In a global way, I think college base- ball is getting far more attention now nationally in media than 1999. The final game of the College World Series was really the only thing televised, now you've got teams and conferences on there all the time. I think the growth of our sport has been huge." Blue & Gold Illustrated: How closely do you follow advanced analytics? Aoki: "There are things we look at, for certain. The struggle I have as a college coach is our sample sizes aren't as big as they are at the major league level. They say 30 at-bats are what make a legitimate sample set. "So it doesn't matter if we play Clemson three times a year, we aren't getting to 30 until maybe a kid's junior year, at which point physically he may have changed a lot. So while we do try to look at a lot of it, it has to probably be a lesser extent than the major league level." Blue & Gold Illustrated: What do you want your players to remember about playing for you? Aoki: "I want them to have a great experience, remember that we provided structure and instilled a sense of discipline. You hope that they learned about the game of baseball, but ideally they learned more than just baseball. Maybe coach- ing and playing or teaching baseball is a bit of a metaphor to coaching and teaching the game of life, so to speak. "I hope they look upon the three or four years they spent not just with our program, but at Notre Dame, and see it as some of the best years of their lives, leaving with a really fulfilled experience." — Jordan Wells Five Questions With … HEAD BASEBALL COACH MIK AOKI Aoki, who is in his fifth year at Notre Dame, guided the Irish to an 11-3 start this season. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS