He doesn’t remember exactly where Clemson’s baseball team was headed on this particular morning in the spring of 2002. Michael Johnson just knew he was running low on time.
Then an All-American first baseman for the Tigers, Johnson had pulled an all-nighter in the batting cages with then-volunteer assistant coach Erik Bakich, who, according to Johnson, was the first to realize Johnson had been taking swings until the wee hours. If they didn’t stop soon, they would both run the risk of missing out on Clemson’s next road trip.
“We stayed out there until I think it was 3 a.m. or something like that,” Johnson recently told The Clemson Insider in a phone interview. “The bus was leaving at 8 or so. I think by the time I got through hitting, Erik was like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to go catch the bus. We need to go grab some breakfast.’ So I think we went to the Waffle House and grabbed breakfast about 4:30, changed clothes and hopped back on the bus.”
During his introductory press conference last month, Bakich, who’s back at Clemson as the head coach, recalled those kinds of late-night hitting sessions with Johnson as some of his most vivid memories of his first stint with the Tigers. Johnson confirmed that while that particular session sticks out to him, there were countless times during that ‘02 season that Bakich stuck around after practices and home games to help him with his swing, most of those instances turning into marathon sessions wearing out the cages.
“I was a worker when I played, and I think that’s what he and I had in common,” said Johnson, who played for the Tigers from 1999-2003. “He appreciated the fact that I was a grinder just like he is, and when we went to work on something, we would just go and work on it. It didn’t matter what time or what day. I think he probably liked that part about me.
“He was a guy that loved being at the field. If it was anybody out there working, he was going to be out there trying to help them. So that was great.”
Johnson was a key cog that season on one of the best teams in program history. As part of a lineup that also featured National Player of the Year Khalil Greene and fellow All-American Jeff Baker, Johnson hit .384 with 25 home runs and 81 RBIs to help lead the Tigers to Omaha, where he was named to the all-College World Series team.
Behind that success were the long hours spent honing his craft, though Johnson doesn’t remember he and Bakich working on anything specific when it came to the physical mechanics of his swing. Johnson said the biggest impact Bakich made on him during those sessions was building his confidence in a sport where failure is more the norm.
“The positive energy he brought,” Johnson said. “Hitting and baseball in general in such a mental game. It’s easy to get discouraged and easy to get down, especially as a young player. You kind of have a tendency to ride that rollercoaster. If you have a great game, you’re on top of the world. If you have a bad game, you’re down in the dumps. I think what Erik helped me with that year is he was able to help me mentally (with) the mental approach to the game as far as just staying consistent, believing in yourself, having that confidence every single day and to just provide that consistency. Not based on your performance but based on your work ethic and your confidence level that you can go out and have a couple of bad at-bats, but then you can come back and hit a home run to put your team up at the end of the game.
“That was really the impact he had on me, and that’s what I remember the most is just helping out with that mental side and just being there. Just being support.”
Bakich worked with Tim Corbin and Kevin O’Sullivan on Jack Leggett’s staff that season before following Corbin to Vanderbilt. He spent seven years on Corbin’s staff before getting his first head coaching job at Maryland in 2010. Most recently, he spent a decade at the helm of Michigan’s program.
All these years later, Johnson remembers Bakich taking that same approach with Clemson’s entire team during that ‘02 season.
“He was always smiling,” Johnson said. “He was coaching us, but he was our biggest fan. Just a real positive support coach on the staff. … No matter what we were doing, where we were, if we were on the field, in the cage or on a road trip, it was just that energy that he brought, that positive energy.”
A former second-round draft pick of the San Diego Padres, Johnson now lives with his family in Pawleys Island. He’s still involved in athletics as the coordinator of athletic facilities for the Georgetown County School District, and he still follows with the program for which he once starred.
Johnson said it’s hard for him to pinpoint why the Monte Lee era of Clemson baseball wasn’t more successful, but he said he’s excited for the opportunity his former coach is getting to try to get the program back to level it was at when he was playing.
“To see his career go from where it started, and to be a part of his start and then follow him as he’s been around and continued to grow as a coach, now to end up back at Clemson is just really, really exciting,” Johnson said. “Happy for him.”
Other than exchanging a few text messages, Johnson hasn’t had a chance to interact with Bakich since getting the job. But Johnson is convinced Bakich will bring back many of the same qualities that he remembers Bakich having the first time Bakich worked for the Tigers 20 years ago.
“For that one year, you had three great, great college baseball coaches on one staff to learn from,” Johnson said. “I think through all of that, Erik is going to bring pieces of all of them and of course his own mentality and his own style. I feel like Clemson is going to be hard-nosed, hard-working and play the game the right way. That’s going to be fun to watch.”
