Profiles in Boldness: Ray Tanner and Scott Wingo's Rise from Unheralded Prospect to College World Series MVP

At first last year, I didn’t think Wingo was that good. Well boy was I wrong. He went from scoring the winning run in last years championship, to basically leading us to a repeat championship. He went from basically zero to Hero and a Legend. Not only is his defense good enough to make a brick wall look bad, his bat helped us win. If you havn’t already, check out “Wingo and his Yard Cocks” on youtube by Patrick Davis. This dude also wrote the song “Just a Big ’Ol Cock,” so if you havn’t seen that, look at it too.

There is a lot of conflicting information out there about Scott Wingo and whether Jack Leggett extended an offer. Most Carolina fans say the Tigers didn’t. Most Clemson fans say they did – but they will concede Ray Tanner and the Gamecocks out-recruited Clemson for Scott’s services.

The 247 page for Scott Wingo shows Wingo holding offers from both schools Morever, after the 2010 CWS, Wingo talked about his recruiting:

"A reporter asked me after the final game, ‘How does it feel to have been rejected by Clemson?’ I felt like stopping him right there," Wingo relayed. "I wasn’t rejected by them. I wanted to go here. (Coach) Tanner made me an offer, and (Coach) Leggett made me one about a week and a half later. I just felt more comfortable here." When asked what made him more comfortable at South Carolina, Wingo responded, "The coaching staff. (Former USC assistant coach Jim) Toman was a big influence. When I came here, he did everything right." (emphasis added)

From what I can piece together, it seems that Scott was not considered a top prospect through his senior year at Mauldin H.S., and was committed to USC Upstate where his older brother played. He was by all accounts scrawny and had never been in a serious lifting program. Nevertheless, he had a break-out performance that summer after graduation (2007), and attracted the attention of former USC assistant Jim Toman. The otherwise excerable Ron Morris actually wrote a decent article on Wingo that goes into more detail about his recruiting by Coach Toman (who is now at Liberty).

That same summer, Coach Leggett already had gotten Mike Freeman to transfer to Clemson from UGA. You may recall that Freeman was a very, very solid player for CU (batted .332 and .328 in his two seasons with the Tigers, with an OBP over .400 both years). Freeman was a smart kid (2 time All ACC Academic) a leader (team captain) and drafted (36th round) who already had played a year in the SEC on a very good UGA squad.

If you read between the lines, it looks like Clemson already had what they considered their 2B of the future, while Wingo probably looked like more of a developmental project. But when Scott was offered by Carolina, I think Jack Leggett gave him an offer too – out of respect for Billy Wingo likely more than anythng. Wingo likely would not have started at Clemson since Freeman had the better bat in 08 and 09 (and that is no slur on Wingo – he was more valuable for his defense than his bat during his first years at Carolina, but Coach Tanner was constantly challenging Wingo to improve his average – some of his struggles are reported here ).

Well, as they say the rest is history. And kudos to Billy Wingo for wearing garnet and black to support his son even if he does still accidentally clap when he hears the Tiger Rag!

PS – Observe the coaching style of Ray Tanner in the last link – how he nurtured and challenged a talented but unheralded Gamecock who was not peforming to his full potential as an underclassman; rather than forcing him out (precious as baseball scholarships are), Tanner and the Gamecocks reaped the dividends during the young man’s senior year on the sport’s biggest stage.