Berkman takes time to reflect on years at Rice

2/19/09 6:00pm

Perhaps Rice's most successful professional athlete, Lance Berkman, chatted with the Thresher's Yan Digilov about Head coach Wayne Graham, three-mile runs, couches thrown off Sid and Orientation Week. Rice Thresher: A lot of people look at the 1996 campaign as a turning point in Rice baseball history. Could you tell us about that legendary campaign, in which the Owls won the final Southwest Conference Championship, despite entering as the bottom seed?

Lance Berkman: We weren't too bad, but by the same token, we were heading into the conference tournament needing to win it to advance to a regional. We weren't going to make an at-large bid. The only reason we got invited to the SWC tournament is because that was the last year of the Southwest Conference. I remember that we lost at Oklahoma State in a heartbreaking game, right before we went to the conference tournament as a tune-up. We got beat in the bottom of the ninth with a walk-off double. In that game we lost Bubba Crosby, who was a freshman that year. He broke his hand trying to steal second base. So here we are heading into the conference tournament minus our 3-hole hitter and center fielder. One of our pitchers had to fill in and play center field. We were thinking we didn't have much of a chance. . We beat three really good teams to win that tournament. We just caught a little lightning in a bottle and had a great SWC tournament.

RT: How did that experience compare to the 1997 season in which you finally reached the College World Series for the first time in Rice history?

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LB: They were all kind of building blocks. My freshman year (1996), we went to the first regional that Rice had ever been to. That was certainly the most noise Rice had ever made in a national tournament. . We finished tied with University of Houston for last place in the conference. Then, of course, we ended up miraculously winning that tournament. Then on top of that, we had a great regional tournament. . It was really cool to finally climb that mountain. To get to the College World Series for the first time was a feeling I will never forget, but along the way, we had those building blocks and those successes that we used to help us."

RT: How did you feel when the Owls finally won a national title in 2003? Did you always get the feeling that the program was inevitably heading in that direction?

LB: . I remember being in Arizona when we were playing the Diamondbacks. During those last few games I would go out hitting batting practice and go back, sprinting into the clubhouse to check the score. It was very nerve-racking for me during that time, because I wanted Rice to win a national title so badly, not only for the school, but for coach Graham. He is such a good coach, he deserves to have at least one national title to his credit.

RT: You have worked with a lot of coaches over the years, but what does Wayne Graham do that makes him unique?

LB: I don't think you can overstate the importance of coach Graham. He is the Rice program. Every bit of success that the Rice program has enjoyed is directly the result of coach Graham's leadership and his vision. It seems like coach can take any group of players and make them achieve to their utmost. I think it is a rare individual that has the ability to do that.

RT: How does he go about getting the best out of his players?

LB: It is hard to put a finger on it. He certainly challenges guys first and foremost. A lot of guys come out of high school, which was the case with me, and are not mentally tough enough. He will make you mentally tough. He challenges you. I think coach Graham has that ability to coax that mental toughness out of everyone he coaches. While you are at Rice it is not easy a lot of time playing for coach, because he demands so much. He is hard. The guy will chew you out, and he gets on your case. But for me, I needed that . I always tell players that my dad is the one that taught me the fundamentals of the game, and it was coach Graham who really taught me the mental side of the game. I give coach all of the credit for molding me into being a mentally tough baseball player.

RT: Lance, we need to take care of a really important topic, now. There are myths and legends about your time here on campus. I want to throw out some of the stories, but each version of these stories ranges so widely that you will have to tell me if they are true or if they ring a bell. The most outlandish one is the incident with the flaming couch.

LB: I have never heard this one.

RT: Really? You have heard of the flaming couch from Sid Richardson? The story ranges from you saving people's lives to you angrily throwing a couch off the balcony.

LB: I do know where that comes from. I really had nothing to do with it. Matt Anderson (Lovett '98) did throw a couch off the top of Sid Rich. Matt was of course our closer extraordinaire and a first-round draft pick for the Tigers. He actually, I think, was suspended from school for a period of time for throwing that couch off the top floor of Sid. I wasn't there, I had nothing to do with it, but I was on the team when that incident took place. And it wasn't flaming, either. It was just a regulation couch that was thrown off the top of Sid Rich.

RT: How about six home runs in one day? Did you do that?

LB: Yes, that is true. That was against the University of Massachusetts. It was a double header. I hit two home runs in the first game and four in the second game. In the second game, I was locked in and felt great at the plate. I was on deck for a fifth at-bat and the guy in front of me hit a shallow pop fly and my roommate was on third base, and he tried to tag up and score, but they caught the ball and threw him out at the plate. So I didn't get a chance for a fifth at-bat, and Coach Graham was furious. He wanted to see me get that fifth at-bat.

RT: What about the problems you had running the loop for Coach Graham? Ring a bell?

LB: That is probably the best story - the "Blue Dart." Coach Graham had given us this mandate between my sophomore and junior year. He said, "When y'all come back from summer break, you better be prepared to run Memorial Park," which is three miles, in 21 minutes or less.

My other roommates were all stressed out about it. They had been running and training for it. My attitude was: 'When as a baseball player do you ever have to run three miles, consecutively? It is kind of silly.' I should back up and say that Coach Graham threatened and meant it that if we didn't make it the first time, we would have to continue running it every day until you could get in shape and make it.

My attitude was that I didn't think I was going to make it. Then when he would make me run the second time, I was going to make one of my buddies who had made it, pick me up in a truck and drive me around. I had this whole scheme in mind to beat the system.

The morning of the race, my roommates were up at 5 a.m. . I think I woke up at 6:45 and was ridiculously late. I drove up right as the race was starting. As a joke, I wore a royal blue shirt, royal blue shorts, shoes with no socks and I had a royal blue bandana. I called myself the "Blue Dart" and told them that I was going to win the race.

Coach Graham said 'go' and I took off pretty close to full speed. Everybody else was pacing themselves. In my mind, I was thinking that I was going to run around he corner, stop and walk. I knew I just wasn't going to make it. I was just going to mess with some of the guys.

I rounded the corner and I decided to see how long I could maintain the pace before I got tired. Before I knew it, I had run a mile. I ran the first mile in like 5:30. I thought, my goodness, I have already run a mile, let's just keep going. I had already run half the race and I was way in front of everybody. .At about the two-mile marker, reality crashed in on me and a gorilla jumped on my back and I started feeling terrible. But I was two-thirds of the way done with it, so I gutted out that last mile. A pitcher caught up to me and we tied for the victory, and as we crossed the finish line, coach Graham started yelling at me, 'You cheated, Berkman! You cheated!' As soon as I crossed the finish line, I just got on all fours and barfed up all my breakfast.

RT: Was there a Baker 13 run-through during one of your games?

LB: That was pretty legendary. I think it was in 1996. It was Friday the 13th. It was like late April when we were playing Baylor. . We had just gotten beat by Baylor, and coach Graham was chewing us out. . The Baylor team hadn't even left the dugout, when all of a sudden, we see about 50 naked people. They came into the field through the door, and they start running around the bases. . 50 naked people start running the bases and coach Graham sees the look on our faces. He turned around, and for about five minutes the world stopped. No one said a word. They were yelling, 'Join us!' . coach Graham turned around and said, 'Well there is not much I can say about that,' and he just let us go. The next day in the paper, they asked coach Graham what he though about the incident. He said they ran the bases better and they showed more balls.

RT: Lance, many of your fans from Rice University and Houston were proud of your stance, along with that of fellow Astro, Roy Oswalt, on the usage of performance enhancing drugs. What message do you have for the young Rice players that have seen the game they love tarnished in some ways?

LB: All I can say is that there still are an awful lot of players that did it the right way. The thing about baseball is that it is a great sport and a great way to make a living. It is a lot of fun to play in college, but there is more to life than just baseball. There is no sense in putting your future health at risk or jeopardizing that over your performance in the game of baseball. Of course Major League Baseball is a serious business, but it is still just a game. I would tell guys that it is just not worth it. If the Lord didn't bless you with the ability to make it at the major league level, I don't see that there is any reason to take matters into your own hands. Work as hard as you can. Enjoy playing the game of baseball, but it is never worth putting your future health at risk. And certainly doing something that is against the law is not good. That is why I feel strongly that performance enhancing drugs, steroids or HGH have no place in the game of baseball.

RT: Lance, finally, I want to bring something to your attention. Are you aware that since around 2000 or 2001, your name has been on just about every O-Week scavenger hunt list?

LB: Are you serious? What is it, an autograph or a sighting?

RT: No, on just about every list it simply has Lance Berkman at the top. Presumably, they just want someone to bring you in.

LB: [Laughter] My goodness, I tell you what, if somebody showed up at my house and said, that 'we are from O-Week come with us,' I think I would go with them.

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