Syracuse’s ‘numbers guy’ Mike Bosch has built up SU’s program from scratch

Syracuse head coach Mike Bosch arrived through the front door of Manley Field House at 8:39 a.m. on Tuesday, March 27. He wasn’t supposed to arrive until 9 a.m., but in a windbreaker with a block Syracuse “S” on the right side of his jacket, the third-year head coach entered the room and looked around, slightly confused.

“You’re early,” Bosch quipped to a coworker he was supposed to meet that morning. “Well … I’m early.”

He opened the door to his small office, which was decorated with portraits of former players at the two schools he has called his coaching homes. He walked along the right side of the small room to reach his desk situated in the back left corner.

The work day began at about 8:46 a.m.

“I’m usually ready to go by this time anyway,” Bosch said.

It was Bosch in a nutshell: He’s quirky, relies on numbers and most of all, loves to work. A head softball coach and mathematics professor at Iowa Lakes Community College for 13 years, Bosch had to balance two full-time jobs. The experience helped as he moved on to the Division-I ranks at Syracuse and was named interim and then head coach, less than three years after his arrival.

In his three years as the head coach at Syracuse, the program’s record has improved with each season.  His modern, “moneyball”-like style focuses heavily on statistics. Numbers helped lift the Orange to just its sixth 30-win season in the program’s history. If SU wins one of its final two games, it would be the first Orange team since 2011 to record 30 wins in consecutive seasons.

Bosch in the preseason tries not to set a mark to hit, instead letting the individual season’s numbers dictate the daily functions of the program. The core of his success comes from his players, he said, and his goal is to get the best out of them so he can log it in the scoresheet.

“I’ve never played a game,” Bosch said. “I am 0-0 as far as playing in college softball. So my players have gotten all the wins for me, and I give them all the credit.”

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Bosch doesn’t stop working. He said some days at Iowa Lakes, he taught a class early in the day, then handled some coaching duties in the middle of the day before teaching more.

“He was used to doing everything around (Iowa Lakes),” said Troy Larson, the school’s athletic director.

At Iowa Lakes, an essential part of his job was recruiting. Larson said Bosch’s days would sometimes last 14 hours due to his surplus of responsibilities.

His workday never fully ended. Even at high school football games, which were popular social events in the small community, Larson said Bosch frequently stepped away from conversations to take phone calls from potential recruits.

When Bosch took over the program, Larson said, the team was consistently finishing seasons with records below .500. Within a few years, Bosch turned the program into a national championship contender.

“We’re off the beaten path,” Larson said. “Don’t get me wrong, I love this place. But it’s not like it’s easy to do what he did here.”

Courtesy of SU Athletics

From the moment Bosch arrived, his eagerness to improve the program showed. To play quality opponents, the team needed to travel, Larson said. He described a mock road trip in which the team would travel five hours south and play three or four games before arriving to a hotel at about midnight. They’d then sleep six or seven hours and drive to play a few more games before returning home near 3 a.m.

Larson said there are about 10 eligible bus drivers for Iowa Lakes and, when the spring season came around, most were farmers and busy with work. So Bosch obtained his commercial driver’s license and drove himself.

“I’m sure he travels a lot better in Syracuse,” Larson said, laughing.

Bosch’s recruiting skills and heavy workload came in handy when he arrived at Syracuse. Initially a pitching coach for the Orange, he left for a year to become National Softball Director at Frozen Ropes, a baseball and softball training facility — which he admitted he took because it paid well. After a year, Bosch was rehired at Syracuse as an assistant coach.

After the 2014 season, he was summoned into the office of Pete Sala, SU’s vice president and chief facilities officer, and the interim athletic director at the time.

Leigh Ross, who had been head coach of the Orange for the past nine years, decided to leave her job without any warning to Bosch, he said, and the rest of her staff left along with her. Bosch was the only remaining staff member, and Sala wanted to name him as the interim head coach.

“I was kind of shocked a little bit,” Bosch said. “I came in and chatted with (Sala), and he said, ‘Here’s what’s happening, and here’s what we’d like you to do.’ And, I was like, ‘Okay. Let’s go.’”

From there, the program was Bosch’s to build. He said he had two priorities: recruiting and hiring a staff. With much of the focus that summer on getting new players, the coach had to do all of his hiring over the phone, and fast, bringing on his assistants in less than a week, he said. Alisa Goler, who was part of Bosch’s original staff at SU and is now the associate head coach with the team, said she only met Bosch once before the season started — to sign her contract when she became an SU employee.

Bosch remains a primary recruiter for SU, and he said the summer stands alone in terms of heavy workloads. But that was nothing new.

“You learn how to have a long day and work,” Bosch said. “I just don’t know how to kind of stop. I have to learn sometimes how to stop myself from overworking. I don’t want to say overworking, just continually not putting things away and stopping from having a … I guess real life. Is that it?”

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Bosch called himself a “numbers guy.”

“He was probably one of the best math instructors that we’ve had at the college,” Larson said. “We were just as sad to see him go as a math teacher as we were as a coach.”

Bosch’s mathematics background sometimes shows in his coaching. The third-year head coach often uses mathematical equations to evaluate and explain parts of the season — including equating season-long trends to sine and cosine graphs — which is often so confusing it causes players to burst into laughter.

“He has to know that I don’t understand it,” junior outfielder Alicia Hansen said. “Everyone usually looks at me. Everyone else knows I don’t.”

Beyond that, Bosch creates and calculates his own statistics. He said there’s a number for how fast players run, throw overhand or underhand and swing the bat. Among other things he calculated: averages against left- or right-handers, and, Hansen said, he keeps track of a players average with an 0-2 count — things that otherwise wouldn’t show up in the stat sheet.

“That’s the way my brain works: A=B, B=C,” Bosch said. “Stats never lie.”

The strategies have translated to where he places players, often repositioning faster players to zones where the batter frequently hits.

While the numbers don’t resonate with players as often, Bosch often uses analogies to teach his players over the course of a season. Before this spring, Hansen said he cut the bottom out of a cup and filled it with 50 M&M’s, using his hand at the bottom to prevent them from falling. He removed his hand, causing the candies to tumble out, emulating how quickly the team’s 50 games would eventually pass.

Hansen said there are “at least 10” analogies that he’s used this season. For Bosch, there is always a number to back things up, his players said. Everything has a rationale.

Courtesy of SU Athletics

This season, Bosch brought in a toy truck to an SU practice. He called it the “opportunity truck.” Throughout the season, Bosch would drive the remote-controlled truck around the field and bump it into a player of his choosing. The routine is embraced by players, who find humor in it, but Bosch ensures there is a meaning behind it.

Hansen said if you get hit by the truck, that’s your one opportunity. You can either take it or leave it. On April 28 — Senior Day at Syracuse Softball Stadium — the truck hit outfielder Rachel Burkhardt.

With the game scoreless in the bottom of the seventh inning, the senior, in front of her entire immediate family, walked to the plate.

“She got her opportunity,” senior Sammy Fernandez said.

With a swing of the bat, Burkhardt launched the ball over the centerfield fence, a walk-off home run. As she rounded the bases, she covered her face, shielding tears and masking a look of awe. The “opportunity truck” had chosen her, and she seized it.

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Back in his office in Manley Field House, Bosch rose from his chair and pointed out pictures on the left side of his office, all memorabilia from his time at Iowa Lakes.

He noticed one in particular, and a slight smile crossed his face as he pointed in the direction of the plaque, honoring his former player’s achievements.

“She’s a mom,” he said. “She’s a mom … That’s how you know you’re old, when your players have kids.”

He pointed out a few more and told short stories as he went down the line before he arrived at the plaque he received after his 500th win as a head coach. Syracuse’s April 4 doubleheader sweep of Canisius would mark 600 wins of Bosch’s as a head softball coach.

“Thirty to 40 wins is a good benchmark for a good season,” Bosch said in his office. “To win 600 games, you’d have to win 30 games for 20 years.”

He paused. “Twenty years,” he said. “That’s how you know you’ve been in this for a long time.”

Bosch sat back in his chair. Just three years into his SU career, the coach has big aspirations for Syracuse and will stop at nothing to provide his team the ultimate goal: a national championship. He dug his pen into a piece of paper on his desk and got back to work.