By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

Mike Candrea, a collegiate softball coaching legend who won eight national championships at Arizona, was the keynote speaker last Thursday at BGSU’s First Pitch Banquet for the softball program inside the Bowen Thompson Student Union’s Lenhard Grand Ballroom.

A first-of-its-kind event for the Falcon softball program, Candrea accepted the invitation at the request of BGSU Director of Athletics Derek van der Merwe, who was the associate vice president and chief operations officer at Arizona prior to his appointment at BGSU in October 2022.

“When Derek reached out to me, it was a no-brainer. He was marvelous at Arizona, and I was very happy for him to get this job here. He’s done a wonderful job. There’s a lot of good things happening.”

Prior to Candrea’s speech, BGSU’s second-year head softball coach Candace Fenton-Bockbrader introduced the team and described her goals and expectations for the squad, which includes being one of the six teams to play in the MAC Tournament.

For Fenton-Bockbrader, the First Pitch event was special.

“It’s absolutely surreal,” she said. “I grew up watching his VHS tapes back in the day when I was training as an athlete. I’ve seen him at multiple conventions. His message is always so impactful and to actually have him here embracing our program, our team and our university is a surreal experience.”

Candrea opened his time on the mic discussing the importance of keeping the program’s alumni base intact, emphasizing that it takes just one person to say they’re in.

“We didn’t always have a beautiful facility (at Arizona),” he said. “There was a lot of people who put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this game before we were on TV. I hope we always keep them at the forefront of our mind because you’re going to need them to progress this program.”

Candrea then discussed his father, who was the only boy among eight siblings and trained as a jazz musician at the Juliard School of Music.

“He died a frustrated man at 77 years old because he had four kids and none of us had any musical talent,” Candrea said. “It skipped an entire generation.”

A focus of his speech also included his time representing the United States as a coach, which included the Pan Am Games, the Olympics and his wife’s passing.

Pan Am Games to Olympics

At the Pan Am Games, Candrea found a way to help his team practice in a Dominican Republic pasture, which included having to protect some donkeys from batted balls. While coaching in Italy, he said they do so much with so little, and it made him realize how much we take for granted when playing softball in the United States.

“It’s not what you don’t have, it’s what you have,” he said. “You make the most out of it.”

The 2004 Olympic experience was bittersweet for Candrea. Just weeks before leading his team to a 9-0 record and a gold medal, his wife passed away from a brain aneurysm while on the last stop of a 48-state pre-Olympics tour. She had recently retired so she could travel with her husband, and Candrea said his players became his security net.

“They got me through that time,” he said.

Despite that, Candrea called the 2004 team the best team he’s ever seen and recalled how they trained with the Navy Seals.

Family was a continuing theme as the 2017 National Softball Hall of Fame inductee recalled how his son helped him to find balance, urging him to ultimately become his son’s summer league coach for three years.

“It was a young kid who kind of got me to understand that I was getting out of balance,” Candrea said. “If you’re going to be good at something, you have to be all in. Balance is hard if you are a perfectionist.

“If you want to be the best at something, you have to find a way. And I’ve slowly learned it’s important to have that balance with my family, my profession and my spirituality.”

‘Nothing stays the same’

Candrea shared some words of wisdom, such as bad information is worse than no information at all and that nothing stays the same — it only gets better or worse. He then spoke of how he misses the preparation and competition more than anything, but that he “doesn’t miss all the other BS” as he retired in 2021 before NIL and the transfer portal.

“You’ve got a chance here at BG to find a way. It’s not easy. It’s very difficult. I never dreamed I’d win a national championship at Arizona, but I promise you that if you can get a group of blue-collar people to believe in a vision, and work toward it and take care of one another and enjoy the process, you can do anything.”

Candrea, who also participated in a Q&A where he discussed his captain philosophy and his recommendation that young girls play several sports, would like to come back to BGSU when “the weather is a little better and softball is going on.” He promised a donation of an unspecified amount to the softball program.

“I’m hoping to energize someone in this community to step up for these young ladies,” he said.

The event also included a student-athlete panel with Marti Henkel, Peyton Dolejs and Ashley Chevalier.

“A day like this is very important for me,” Dolejs said. “This is our first First Pitch dinner, which is very cool and having someone like Mike Candrea here makes it even better. Seeing how many people in the BG community come out to support us and someone like Mike Candrea coming back to a mid-major university just to speak to us and let us know about his successes in his career is just very interesting.”