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Deacs dismiss baseball coach
Rembielak's contract will not be renewed
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Published: May 23, 2009
If the Wake Forest Deacons make it back to the ACC Baseball Tournament next season, it will be with another coach.
Athletics Director Ron Wellman said yesterday that Rick Rembielak will not have his contract renewed after it expires June 30, ending Rembielak's faltering five-year stint as the Deacons' coach. Rembielak's record was 142-142 at Wake Forest, and this season's team went 22-30, finished last in the ACC at 6-24 and didn't qualify for the eight-team ACC Tournament.
Wellman said that the record was the sole reason for the move.
"It was strictly for competitive reasons," Wellman said. "After five years, the program isn't where Rick wanted it to be, or any of us wanted it to be. And that is one of the very important components of what we do, which is field championship-caliber teams.
"There was no other reason. He could not have been a better representative of our program in every other area. But we do want our baseball program to be at a different level."
The Deacons, after winning ACC championships in 1998, 1999 and 2001 under George Greer, slipped to 17-33 (4-20 ACC) in 2004. Wellman then replaced Greer with Rembielak, a former shortstop in the Orioles, Cubs and Brewers organizations who was 373-251-1 in 11 years as head coach at Kent State.
Rembielak's first team showed marked improvement, finishing 28-30 overall and eighth in the ACC at 12-18. The Deacons then had their best two seasons under Rembielak, going 33-22 overall (16-13 ACC) in 2006 and 34-29 (14-16) in 2007. They also became the story of the ACC Tournament in 2007, making a run from the eighth seed to the championship game, where they lost to North Carolina.
The late charge put the Deacons in the NCAA Tournament, but they were eliminated by Texas in 12 innings in the first round. Since then, the Deacons have been 47-61 overall and 18-40 in the ACC.
Rembielak said he was grateful for the opportunity.
"I think first off, this is a fabulous institution and athletic department," Rembielak said. "I have the utmost respect for Ron Wellman and everybody here. They're great people everybody was good to me. I regret that it didn't turn out better. There are expectations that need to be fulfilled, and in five years they were not fulfilled.
"I still think this is a great place to work and to be. I love Carolina, and I love Wake Forest."
Rembielak said that his view of the state of the program is different from Wellman's.
"Do I understand it? Not totally," he said. "But I've got my opinions and so forth, and I expressed them. I understand from an athletic director's standpoint, too, and it's a bump in the road and you've got to keep moving on."
Wellman said he will conduct a national search for a new coach but didn't set any timetable. He said it's too early to determine how much consideration current assistants Jon Palmieri and Greg Bauer will get.
"We're not going to rush into anything," Wellman said. "We're going to do it as quickly as possible but we never determine ‘this is our target date,' because so many things can happen to obliterate that target date. And then it looks like something has gone wrong, when nothing has gone wrong.
"So we don't know how fast it will be. A lot will be dependant on the availability of coaches to talk, and many of them are still playing. So I don't know that we'll be talking with them during their season."
■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.
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