Mazey’s offseason: From fly balls to fly rods

FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va.  — When West Virginia baseball coach Randy Mazey arrived in Morgantown for his job interview last summer, it didn’t take him long to make up his mind. In fact, the Johnstown, Pa., native was ready to go to work even before he arrived at the WVU Coliseum.

“All I had to do was see what it said on the license plates: ‘Wild, Wonderful West Virginia” and I was sold,” Mazey said. “I didn’t even have to meet Oliver Luck.”

Mazey surpassed expectations by guiding the Mountaineers to a third-place finish during its first season in the Big 12 Conference. He sees great things ahead for the WVU program in a state filled with baseball potential. But during the offseason, Mazey concerns himself more with fly rods than fly balls.

“Other than going to the College World Series, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than floating down a river,” Mazey said. “It’s rare when even on a baseball road trip, I don’t have my fly rod with me.”

Mazey is a bit of a philosopher about fishing. He looks for players who enjoy fishing and believes it reveals something about character.

“A fisherman, especially a fly fisherman, is somebody with a lot of patience, and patience is a tremendous quality in a ball player,” said Mazey as he whipped his 10-weight fly rod back and forth. “For me, being out here creates a balance. Being a coach makes me a better fisherman and being a fisherman makes me a better coach.”

“Being a coach makes me a better fisherman and being a fisherman makes me a better coach.” — Randy Mazey

Mazey is as serious about fishing as he is about baseball. He recalled a memorable day of trout fishing in three states during a recruiting trip to the Midwest. He woke up in Iowa, where he caught six brown trout in the morning. During the afternoon he caught two brook trout in Wisconsin, and he finished off his day in Minnesota where he caught four rainbows near dusk.

“One of the things on my bucket list is to catch a trout in every state,” Mazey said. “I’ve caught trout in 24 states and I’ve taken care of West Virginia. When I took the job, one of the first things I did was go down to Elk Springs on a trout fishing trip.”

Despite his vast outdoor experience, Mazey had never caught a smallmouth on a fly rod. For the purpose of this story and an episode of Ram Trucks “West Virginia Outdoors,” I introduced him to Sean Wishart with Mountain State Anglers. Mazey soon crossed the fly rod smallmouth off his bucket list during a June float trip on New River.

But Mazey wasn’t content to just catch smallmouth. During the course of an eight-hour trip, he added redeye, spotted bass and even a trout to his creel—much to the surprise of Wishart, at the mouth of Arbuckle Creek.

“You won’t find trout in here at this time of year,” Wishart shared seconds before Mazey set the hook and proved him wrong.

“That’s the sign of a real trout fisherman,” Mazey laughed. “When you can catch a trout from a river that doesn’t have any trout. I’ve caught a rainbow trout from the New River.”

Mazey said he also enjoys hunting. He killed a spring gobbler near his Morgantown home this year and he’s already scoping out potential pinch points and trees to hang a stand for archery season this fall. He and his wife Amanda honeymooned in Alaska on a four-day wilderness fly-in adventure.

“Over in Tennessee I fished a lot of tailwaters, and I’ve done float trips out in Montana and Colorado,” Mazey said. “I wasn’t kidding you when I said this is absolutely, positively one of my favorite things in the world to do.”

Considering the success of WVU baseball last season, Mazey in years to come will probably discover a lot more of the wild and wonderful elements that won his heart.





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