Walking onto the field at Frank Sancet Stadium Saturday, Terry Francona hardly looked like a former ballplayer. Hatless, with a shaved head bowed slightly to match his slack posture, the 44-year-old South Dakota native would have fit right in with the reporters in his rumpled casual wear.
He might have been taken for just about anything except what his former coach, UA wins leader Jerry Kindall, would later call him: "A baseball guy."
If his appearance doesn't match the term, his resumŽ does. He won the 1980 Golden Spikes Award, given to the country's best amateur baseball player. The same year, he led Arizona to its second national title, earning College World Series MVP honors.
As manager of the Double-A Birmingham Barons, he was Baseball America's top managing prospect in 1994, during the same season in which he managed Michael Jordan in his ill-fated flirtation with professional baseball. Two years later, at the age of 37, he became the youngest manager in the majors when the Philadelphia brass picked him to run the Phillies.
Francona's come a long way in the 24 years since he last donned the UA cardinal and navy. But his biggest test is yet to come, after taking the helm of the Red Sox last month for one reason: to lead the "cursed" Boston franchise to its first World Series title since 1918.
If he feels the pressure, it doesn't seem to bother him.
"I know we're supposed to win," he said. "They've built a team to be able to win. Regardless, when you get to where we are in professional baseball, you put so much pressure on yourself that I don't think it really matters. Whether you're supposed to win or lose, when you lose, it still hurts. So I'm glad that people expect us to be good."
Francona's used to high expectations; after all, he's already managed in one of the few cities that can match Beantown's fan fervor. Phillies fans have been known to boo everybody from Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt to Santa Claus himself, and Francona was no exception while amassing a 279-363 record with the Phillies. But he says his record doesn't reflect the value he gained from that experience.
"The four years of experience ÷ you can't replace that," he said. "You can say you're confident, you can feel confident, but until you actually do it, you haven't done it. Now that I have four years of actually being a major league manager, I think it helps prepare you for being more successful."
In those four years, he became known as the consummate players' coach. That devotion to his players didn't go unrequited. His former Philadelphia ace, Curt Schilling, made it known when the Sox began wooing him this offseason that Francona's hiring would go a long way toward putting him in a Boston jersey.
Francona says he treats his players the same way Kindall treated him.
"(Kindall taught me) to respect people, to respect the game and to play the game right," he said. "But the ultimate thing I think I learned was to respect people. I think that's probably the most important thing."
He said his time at Arizona taught him how it feels to be a champion.
"When you can leave the field having that feeling ÷ I don't care if you're in minor-league baseball or college baseball or professional ÷ when you can leave the field and jump up and down with a bunch of people you care about, it's a really neat feeling."
Regardless of whether he can break the "Curse of the Bambino," he said he'll always look back fondly on his time at Arizona.
"I spent three years at the U of A, and then I lived (in Tucson) for 20 years, so it changed my life," he said.