{"id":54559,"date":"2012-02-08T08:09:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T13:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=54559"},"modified":"2017-11-30T15:06:53","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T20:06:53","slug":"baseball-preseason-event-honors-avery-point-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/02\/baseball-preseason-event-honors-avery-point-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball Preseason Event Honors Avery Point Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The 2012 Huskies Baseball Preseason Dinner featured a keynote address by new Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine and presentation of the 2012 UConn Baseball Alumni Award to Roger Bidwell, head coach of the UConn Avery Point baseball team. Pictured (left to right) are Bidwell, Valentine, and Jim Penders, head coach of the UConn baseball team. (Steve Slade ’89 (SFA) for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If there is anyone who appreciates what the 2011 Husky baseball team accomplished in winning its first-ever Big East regular season title and then making a run to the NCAA Super Regional, it is Roger Bidwell \u201978 (ED), \u201984 MA, now in his 31st year as head coach of the UConn-Avery Point baseball team, which plays at the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) level.<\/p>\n

Bidwell played baseball at Avery Point as a student-athlete before going on to play at Storrs. During his 31 years as head coach at Avery Point he has posted a record of 867-338. More than 50 of his student-athletes have followed his path to the main campus. Twenty-eight of his players have gone on to play professional baseball, helping to lead Bidwell\u2019s teams to six Connecticut Small College Championships, 10 NJCAA Division 2 New England Championships, four NJCAA Division 2 East District Championships, and four NJCAS Division 2 World Series appearances, including being the National Runner-up in 2010.<\/p>\n

Bidwell was recognized recently with the 2012 UConn Baseball Alumni Award during the annual Preseason Baseball Dinner in Storrs, where Stamford, Conn. native Bobby Valentine, the new manager of the Boston Red Sox, was the featured speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoger is a true-blue Husky who has selflessly touched countless lives during his storied career,\u201d said Huskies head coach Jim Penders \u201994 (CLAS), \u201998 MA, who presented Bidwell with the award.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 3, three of Bidwell\u2019s former players were inducted into the Avery Point Sports Hall of Fame. The Avery Point inductees include Pete Walker (1990), currently bullpen coach for the Toronto Blue Jays; John McDonald (1992-1994), shortstop for the Blue Jays; and Rajai Davis (1999-2001), centerfielder for the Blue Jays. Also honored with a Service Award for Avery Point, will be Myles Halliwell, former assistant baseball coach at Fitch High School in Groton, the team\u2019s longtime scorekeeper and stadium announcer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great to see the enthusiasm for the program. The room was filled,\u201d Bidwell said of his recognition at the dinner attended by about 400 alumni, fans, parents, student-athletes, and guests. \u201cThere was a lot of energy. Bobby V being there didn\u2019t hurt. As an alum of the program, I\u2019m really excited to see what Coach Penders is doing. That is something everybody is proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two members of the current Huskies team, which opens the 2012 season in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Feb. 17 against Indiana State, are former student-athletes who played for Bidwell \u2013 first baseman Ryan Fuller \u201912 (CLAS), a second-team 2011 All Big East selection, and outfielder Stanley Paul \u201913 (CLAS), an NJCAA All-New England selection. Both helped the Avery Point team to reach the NJCAA World Series in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m recruiting out there 12 months a year for potential people that fit the mold for UConn Avery Point, meaning a UConn-caliber student, someone we can develop and move on to a higher level,\u201d said Bidwell. \u201cIf we feel we have someone who can help Coach Penders, he\u2019ll know about it and take a look to see if it can fill a need for him. I\u2019m getting guys who aren\u2019t being offered scholarships out of high school. I\u2019m getting guys that I have to identify, who maybe were late bloomers, maybe were hurt in their senior year, that were overlooked but who have potential and need a little time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recent dinner, where the team received their Big East championship rings, was the highlight of the first day of practice for the 2012 Husky baseball team, which hopes to build on the success of last year\u2019s 45-20-1 season. During practice, the team had a visit from Valentine, a 10-year major league veteran who managed the Texas Rangers and the New York Mets before spending six years as manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the great sports programs in the world,\u201d Valentine told reporters before the dinner \u201cWhen you start hosting regionals and continue to get the national attention they\u2019re getting and going to bowl games in football and the NCAAs in basketball \u2013 it makes them among the top dogs. I\u2019m proud of it, I\u2019m from Connecticut and I think other people should also be proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penders said the Huskies will be strengthened by having a core of returning players who have played at the highest level of competition, noting that Fuller, catcher Joe Pavone \u201912 (BUS), third baseman Tim Martin \u201912 (CLAS), center fielder Billy Ferriter \u201913 (CLAS), and second baseman LJ Mazzilli \u201913 (CLAS) will anchor the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be in a good position. The biggest thing we\u2019re going to have to figure out is who our starting pitchers are going to be,\u201d Penders said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to have to disturb the bullpen. I want to leave those guys in their spots. I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll know that until March. The culture of the program is in a good place. They\u2019re working very hard. I\u2019m hoping we can make a big run in the Big East. That\u2019s the first championship we can win. I think we\u2019ll be prepared with our early season schedule to build toward that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Huskies will spend the early part of the season traveling to Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi and Oregon for games, before the home opener against Yale at J.O. Christian Field on March 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The annual preseason Husky Baseball Dinner also featured Connecticut-native Bobby Valentine, manager of the Boston Red Sox, as speaker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":54391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1712,173,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-54559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-uconn-avery-point","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 01:19:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54559"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132161,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54559\/revisions\/132161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/54391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54559"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=54559"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=54559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}