Ep. 69 | Derek Sullivan, Sacramento City College

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley sits down with Derek Sullivan, head baseball coach at Sacramento City College in Sacramento, California. Sullivan has been at Sac City for 25 of the last 27 years — three as a redshirt player, eight as an assistant, and a 14th season coming as the head coach — inside a program with 44 major league alumni and state championships dating back to 1951.

The conversation is part civics lesson and part coaching philosophy: how California's community college system actually works, what roster limits and the transfer portal have done to junior college recruiting, and the two phrases Sac City hangs its identity on.

The highlights:

• Why a full-time California community college head job can be the best job in baseball
• How the 3C2A differs from the NJCAA, and why Sullivan thinks the two will never merge
• What two years costs a California resident versus an out-of-state or international player
• Catching the "kickbacks" from four-year rosters, and a multi-field fall program across the street
• Best speed: best effort rather than hardest effort, and why it gets modified for a tight hamstring
• Twelve seconds on and off the field, and the impression it leaves on an opponent
• What "no limits" means in a program with five former major league managers
• Why job security lets him coach a process instead of a result

Twenty-Five Years in One Place

Sullivan's kids ask him every year how long he has been at Sac City, and the number keeps climbing: three seasons as a redshirt player, eight as an assistant, and a 14th year ahead as the head coach. The tradition could be a weight, and he says he would rather carry it than start from nothing. The harder part is staying current inside it — changing what should change without chasing the new thing only because it is new.

The name travels. He played college ball in New York and has spent time around the game in Florida, the Northwest, and most other corners of the country, and he says that if he mentions Sac City, somebody always knows what it is. He took over from Andy McKay, now a front office executive with the Seattle Mariners, and still calls former Sac City coach Jerry Weinstein — a man he describes as one of the greatest living baseball men — to ask how the program used to handle a bunt defense or a secondary pick play. The reputation is practical, too: if he believes he has a player who can help a high-major program, the phone call gets returned.

"Where our guys go, as a JC, that's the whole show. Winning's cool."

The Best Job in Baseball

Ask why coaches stay and Sullivan starts with the job itself. He is full-time California community college faculty with tenure. The pay is good without being elite, and the security is real enough that he jokes an awful stretch would not cost him employment. Sacramento is not the Bay Area and not Los Angeles, the cost of living is manageable, his family is there, and the faculty calendar keeps him on roughly the same schedule as his kids. There are about 86 baseball-playing schools in California, not all of them full-time positions, which is part of why the good ones rarely open. Over roughly the last 50 years, Sac City has had four head coaches.

The facility does not hurt: a lit 1,500-seat stadium with an immaculate playing surface, a scoreboard, and a clubhouse built in. Union Stadium earned its name honestly, built in the late 1980s with volunteer labor and apprenticeship hours from the city's trade unions. Sullivan thinks the stability shows up in the players, because a staff that is not worried about next year can actually dig into why it does what it does. The rest, he says, is the people — a steady mix of alumni who know the system and outside hires brought in specifically to shake it up.

How the 3C2A Works

California's community colleges were built around access to education: earn an associate degree cheaply, then transfer into the CSU or UC systems. Athletics rides on top of that structure, and campuses support it because eligibility requirements and time-bound goals tend to produce motivated students who graduate.

The economics are why the 3C2A stands alone. There are no athletic scholarships anywhere in California community college sports — not one — but state residents essentially attend free for two years under the California Promise Grant. When Sullivan played, tuition was $11 a unit. An out-of-state or international student pays roughly $500 a unit, which with living costs can approach $25,000 for a first year before dropping into the $12,000 to $13,000 range once residency applies. About half of the country's community college football programs sit in California, and 86 or so of its campuses play baseball. Coaches have floated joining the NJCAA; Sullivan does not think it can happen, because California programs fundraise for travel, the calendars do not line up, and a scholarship structure would have to be invented where none is needed.

Roster Limits, the Portal, and Catching the Runoff

Sullivan is blunt that the most recent high school class got squeezed by the new roster rules, and he expects a couple of years of mess before it flushes out. He holds two thoughts at once: he has an MBA and is on board with athletes capturing money for what they do, and he understands why a Division I coach now managing a roster year to year — the way LSU's Jay Johnson describes it — would be frustrated. Junior college has always had a free agency element, with transfer deadlines strict enough that a sophomore leaving mid-year is nearly impossible, so the portal did not change his world the way it changed everyone else's.

What Sac City does is catch the runoff. Players coming back from four-year programs have always arrived; the timing has shifted, with more August additions now. He tells high school recruits the truth about it, because he is trying to win a state championship and will take any player who helps, and he can point to a track record of local players who came in and started as freshmen. The fall program is part of the pitch: a city park less than a mile from campus gives him multiple fields, a poor man's spring training complex closer to Dominican-style fields than a college campus, so he can carry a bigger roster, create real competition, and let the stadium surface rest. The flip side of the model is constant turnover — he lost a true freshman he expected to be a standout to a four-year scholarship in July, and calls that the job.

What the Job Actually Is

Because he is not coaching to keep his job, the measuring stick changes. What his college wants is for players to earn degrees and transfer, and he wants that at the highest level available. He wants players signing professional contracts too, which is why the program's drills and progressions are built around bat speed, arm speed, and pitch shaping, all of it measurable now in ways it was not before. He tells his team that this is higher education and the baseball program is going to operate that way.

"Get really good players and make them better. Turns out we win a lot of games that way."

Best Speed

Ask a Sac City alum for a snapshot of the program and Sullivan expects the same answer every time: watch them change sides. The goal is nine players off the field before the other team gets one on, and everybody out before the opponent clears the dugout. But best speed is not sprinting everywhere.

"Your best speed is your best effort with every breath you take."

It is best effort, not hardest effort. Trying hard is not the point if performance does not follow, and effort includes resting, eating, and lifting. It is also honest and relative: he cannot tell how hard a player is running to first base, and the player is the only one who knows, which is the whole reason it works as a standard. It gets modified, too. A player with a tight hamstring proves nothing by sprinting to his position and landing on the bench instead of hitting fourth — slow guys do not have to outrun fast guys, they just have to get there working.

No Limits

The second phrase is no limits, and Sullivan grounds it in what players who wore the uniform have done: state championships and state players of the year, Division I scholarships, first-round draft picks, a seven-figure signing bonus, 44 major leaguers, and five former major league managers. Mike Neu, now the head coach at California, recorded the final out of Miami's College World Series title. The program's first state championships came in 1951 and 1953.

"No limits means you can do anything you want in this game if you're willing to make the sacrifices."

In practice, he says, the phrase starts by admitting the limits are real — physical, mental, financial — and then attacking them a little at a time. A sign hangs above the locker room door, and if a player pushes at those limits for a year or two or three and then turns around, they are not limits anymore. That is what he calls a Sac City experience, and it counts whether the player leaves for an NAIA roster or simply finishes his degree. He used to define himself by how many guys reached Division I; now the standard is growth, effort, and controllables, and he believes the winning follows. Job security is what makes it possible, because he can get off the result and coach a process.

Twelve Seconds On and Off the Field

Ross Hawley once spent an entire first little league practice on nothing but getting on and off the field, and the kids were gassed by the end of it. Sullivan's response: they do it in 12 seconds.

His reasons are simple. It is the most obvious demonstration of best speed, it is attainable, and it can be timed, so there is no arguing about whether it happened. It is also the brand — the thing alumni come back and talk about, the same way the team wears high socks, takes a lead off first base one way, and returns to the bag one way. None of those choices is the only correct one; the point is having controllables players can execute on purpose. When Sac City got back to the state final four in 2018 after more than a decade away, a coach from the southern section who had never seen them play walked over to say how much he loved the way they came on and off the field.

There is a practical payoff. When the team does it well in the fall, it does not condition at the end of practice, because nine innings across two fields produces plenty of sprints. He is candid that the standard would need modifying over a 140- or 162-game professional season, but for 18-to-21-year-olds playing 40 games plus playoffs, he thinks it is doable.

Panther Magic

What alumni and former coaches describe when they talk about Sac City is a reputation: Panther Magic, the way you play, the impression you leave. Sullivan wants a visiting team walking through the side gate at Union Stadium to notice how his players are going about it before the game starts.

"We're already down three runs because of how we're going about it."

It does not mean the other team backs down. It means they recognize this is not normal. And he is quick to point out that none of it is exclusive — the standard is available to every program in the country, which is why he cannot quite understand why more of them do not claim it.

Music and the Final Word

Sullivan did not play much at Sac City, with good players ahead of him, but his walkout songs were Nelly's "Ride Wit Me" as a freshman and Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" the next year. The team tradition is bigger than either: for something like 30 straight years, Rocky has played while Sac City sprints out for pregame infield and outfield, and he says he still gets chills standing behind the mound with the fungo.

He closes on why he does interviews and coaching conventions at all. He likes going back and forth with colleagues at any level about the opportunity he has, and he hopes a listener takes one thing from it and uses it to make their own players better.

Episode Timestamps

Tap any timestamp to jump the player straight to that moment.

• 0:00 — Introduction
• 1:15 — An admirer of Sac City baseball and its tradition
• 2:12 — Twenty-five of the last 27 years at Sac City
• 4:26 — Jerry Weinstein, Andy McKay, and a phone call that gets returned
• 7:22 — Why he calls it the best job in baseball
• 9:44 — Union Stadium, built by the city's trade unions
• 12:23 — Alumni coaches, new voices, and keeping the program fresh
• 14:11 — Inside the 3C2A
• 18:46 — What it costs an out-of-state or international player
• 20:53 — Why the 3C2A will not merge with the NJCAA
• 22:48 — Roster limits, the portal, and the class that got squeezed
• 26:34 — Catching the runoff, and a poor man's spring training complex
• 29:25 — Roster composition and impact freshmen
• 31:57 — The real job: degrees, transfers, and the next step
• 33:32 — The Sac City brand: best speed and no limits
• 36:07 — No limits: 44 big leaguers and five major league managers
• 41:42 — A little league practice spent getting on and off the field
• 45:58 — A compliment from a rival coach at the 2018 final four
• 49:32 — Panther Magic and the impression you leave
• 51:00 — Walkout songs, and 30 years of Rocky before pregame infield
• 53:12 — Final word: why he still loves talking Sac City

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Derek Sullivan is the head baseball coach at Sacramento City College in Sacramento, California. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.