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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 4 77 long as it was a bang-bang play at the plate, the catcher was fair play. (Moler) was blocking the plate and at the last second he kind of ducked, so it was a collision. But I did go over the top of him and kind of did a flip where my hand landed on the plate." The umpire, though, missed it, calling Wasikowski out when he was tagged by the pitcher, who had retrieved the ball after backing up the play. Wasikowski, understand- ably, was incensed. "The video and all the pictures proved that I was safe and it was the wrong call in the national championship game," said Wasikowski, whose Waves overcame the missed call to win the game by a run. "It was a big deal." A bigger one, however, might have been the change made after Wasikowski's run-ins with catchers. As a re- sult, the NCAA amended rules to help prevent collisions at the plate, forcing runners to slide or risk being called out. Lopez calls it the "Mark Wasikowski Rule." "He was the best (at it) I ever coached," Lopez said. "If you were standing on home plate and he was coming home to score, you need to be ready or have a little bit of linebacker in you. It was going to be a collision." And 25 years later, Wasikowski's not eased up. Austin Grebeck never sent a text that went un- answered. The former Oregon outfielder contacted Wasi- kowski, then a Ducks' assistant, frequently over the last several seasons, asking if he could come out to the batting cage, usually either before class- es at 9 a.m. or after practices around 7 p.m. And the answers, an overwhelming majority of the time — family obligations with his wife, Lori, and two daughters were the exception — came back the same. "Within three minutes, it was always 'Yes,'" Grebeck said. "… He's all in." It's a reason why Wasikowski, 45, has experi- enced success at each of his coaching stops, par- ticularly the last three, on Lopez's staffs at Florida (1998-2001) and Arizona (2001-2011) and at Or- egon (2011-2016), led by George Horton. During those nearly two decades, Wasikowski helped teams to 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, including the '04 Wildcats to the College World Series. And the year after he left for Oregon, Arizona won the 2012 championship, and although Wasikowski wasn't there, Lopez gives him credit. "He's got a great eye for talent, a phenomenal eye for talent," said Lopez, a three-time national coach of the year who won titles in '92 and '12 before retiring in '15. "Not many people realize (this) but look at the 2012 club in Ari- zona — now, he went to Oregon that year, so he didn't get a chance to experience that with us — but if anybody who knew the situation asked me, I'd say, 'Mark Wasikowski put that club together.'" At Purdue, Wasikowski will face a major task in re- building its club, which won only 10 games last season and has just a 28.7-winning percentage the last four years. It makes Purdue's 2012 Big Ten championship seem like eons ago. But Wasikowski wants to attack it with work, using the same attitude he played with years ago while on the road Pepperdine Athletics On this play in the 1992 College World Series, new Boilermaker- maker baseball coach Mark Wasikowski, playing for Pepperdine, collided with the Cal State-Fullerton catcher. The play prompted a rule change in college baseball.