Friday, February 26, 2010

Think of baseball in the State of Florida and the big boys come to mind. Florida State, Florida, Miami are the big three that everyone knows about. Those teams, you have seen on television playing well into June in the great city of Omaha. Then you have UCF, USF, FIU, and FAU, too.

But looming off in the distance on the state's gorgeous West Coast, tucked away in beautiful Fort Myers, is a team that no one's really heard about yet. Key word being yet.

Go ask the other Atlantic Sun teams about this team and they'll probably shake their heads.

Florida Gulf Coast.

The Eagles won the last two A-Sun regular season championships by a combined 7.5 games. So why hasn't anyone heard about Dave Tollett's team? They were a team in transition from Division II. No postseason allowed, not even the A-Sun tournament, until 2010.

The best team in the league knew when their season would be over the last two years. Not the greatest feeling a team could have.

All along Tollett had a plan. Even just getting to the Division I level seemed like an impossible dream eight short years ago. Tollett started the Eagles program as an NAIA school that didn't even have a field or any scholarships back in 2001.

So having the league's best record with no place to go left some a bit bitter, but not that bitter when you put things into perspective.

How do you bring in talent to win conference championships with no dream of a championship? Promises. Promises of championships in years to come. Lay the foundation, and good things would come.

The talent kept coming for Tollett. The promise of playing time at the Division I level, and the dream that the NCAA Tournament would be in their hands within a couple years, was enough for guys like Chris Sale to come.