Cliff Godwin knew there was something different about Terry Rooney.

The UCF hitting coach was familiar with the fiery, young pitching coach from his years at James Madison and Old Dominion. Godwin was in his senior year as a player at East Carolina when the animated Rooney used to regularly sprint out to the mound and argue with the umpires.

Terry Rooney is entering his third season as the head coach at UCF. (Kurt Rivers/KnightNews.com)

“I can tell you when I played against him, it was kind of a running joke with our team,” Godwin said. “It was like ‘god that pitching coach over there, he has got a lot of energy and he is going crazy over there.’ We get a lot of laughs out of it now.”

Tom Walter saw something special.

The former head coach at George Washington, Walter hired Rooney for his first job as an assistant at GW when he was a ripe 24-year-old — just four months out of pitching college ball.

“What struck me about Terry immediately was how focused he was, how driven he was and how mature he was,” said Walter, who is currently the head coach at Wake Forest. “Here is a kid who is like 22 years old at the time and he has his first paid job as a pitching coach in charge of a pitching staff. Literally four months prior he was pitching himself in college baseball.”

Entering his third season as the head man at UCF, Rooney has showed exactly how special of a coach he is. He flipped his team’s record around in 2010, going 33-22 after a 22-33 season in 2009, his first year with the Knights. Now, his players are starting to take on that same fiery and passionate personality that Rooney has become so famous for.

“He has really brought it out of us,” UCF sophomore closer Joe Rogers said. “I think we are going to have more of that energy this year as the season goes on.”

Getting Initiated

It wasn’t easy for Rooney starting out.

The emotional leader of the Knights worked his way up through the coaching ranks. He spent time doing the laundry for the women’s basketball team while at George Washington. It was his responsibility to collect the meal money for the baseball players at Old Dominion to make sure “you have enough five dollar bills so everybody can go to McDonald’s”.

It was all a part of his initiation process.

“He wasn’t getting paid a whole lot. It wasn’t a great deal of money and he was in Washington, D.C., so in order to make extra money and make ends meat he had to do some laundry and he handled some equipment responsibilities,” Walter said. “I had the same job when I was coming up through GW … so it’s kind of been passed down from generation to generation. Terry had his ‘initiation’ so to speak.”

After GW, James Madison and Old Dominion, Rooney made a stop at Stetson from 2002-03 before stints at Notre Dame and most recently, LSU. All along the way, he’s built up a respect for coaches and an appreciation for the little things.

Cliff Godwin has spent time with Rooney on his staffs at Notre Dame, LSU and UCF. (Kurt Rivers/KnightNews.com)

“I think it was great to be able to do all those things and I think it gives me a much greater appreciation in dealing with my assistant coaches,” Rooney said. “One, I can actually tell them to do something because I tell them I have done it. I can say listen, I’ve done the laundry before as an assistant coach. Believe me, I’ve done it all.”

Godwin has spent most of his coaching career with Rooney, serving as his sidekick at both Notre Dame and LSU. He has built a level of respect for Rooney for all that he’s done.

“The majority of people in our profession have [worked their way up],” Godwin said. “For him to be a head coach and have actually gone through being a volunteer, making no money and working the same amount of hours you are working now, you obviously respect a guy who has done it all. Just the way he treats the equipment managers and student managers because he has done it.”

The Road to Omaha

From the moment he was introduced as UCF’s fifth head coach in school history on June 12, 2008, Rooney has voiced one goal: to lead the Knights to Omaha, the site of the college baseball world series.

His motto’s “1430” — the miles from Orlando to Omaha — and “ORTO” — on the road to Omaha — have become not just sayings, but a mindset for his baseball program. He tweets about getting to Omaha. Hanging on his wall in his office is a blank plaque with the name plate of UCF and College World Series, just waiting to be filled with a team photo.

Rooney lives and breaths Omaha, and so does his baseball team.

Joe Rogers is just one of many players that shows the same fiery intensity that Rooney exudes out on the mound (Kurt Rivers/KnightNews.com).

“He is resilient in everything in his life. He has a goal to go to Omaha and he is going to work until we are going to get there,” Godwin said. “He is a tireless worker. His motor never stops thinking about recruiting and how to get our team better.

“There is never a down time in his life about that.”

Making a name for himself during games for wearing his emotions on his sleeve, Rooney’s motor never stops. Chris Duffy, a member of the Philadelphia Phillies organization and former Knight, spent two seasons under Rooney at UCF. He challenges his team to bring the same energy he does on a daily basis.

“He really brings energy every day,” said Chris Duffy, the all-time home run leader at UCF. “He brings a certain amount of energy and he gets everybody going every day. It’s hard to do that to your team. It’s definitely a challenge.

“When you do something over and over everyday, usually like the first day you are excited, but as you do it every day one day after another, you usually sit back a little bit. Every day he tries to make it like the first day.”

An ‘Assistant-coaches’ Mentality

Along with his staff, Rooney has been able to lock in back-to-back top 20 recruiting classes at UCF. He’s increased the talent level all while focusing on what he was good at as an assistant: luring players to his program.

“I feel like the experience as an assistant coach has helped me as a head coach,” Rooney said. “One of the things that is big is as a head coach I still stay very active in recruiting. I would say a majority of the college baseball coaches are not as active as I am in the recruiting.

“Cliff Godwin and I run that thing hand in hand and Cliff is our recruiting coordinator and that’s something that I always do. I think one of the things that head coaches in any sport get hurt when they take their jobs is that they get away from whatever their strengths were as an assistant.”

Rooney is always on the road recruiting. Being that active in the program has helped him develop personal relationships with his players. He continues to talk to his former players on a regular basis, including sending a text to Duffy and former Knight Shane Brown at least weekly.

He knows players are crucial to the success of the program.

Rooney's passion has helped create quite a bond on his teams, especially between current teammates Travis Shreve and Darnell Sweeney (Kurt Rivers/KnightNews.com).

“I think part of it too is that I think the relationships with kids has been really good because as a head coach I am still so active in the recruiting,” Rooney said. “I am out there in the summer. I am out there in the fall. Every Monday and Thursday that we are not playing, I book my whole schedule so we can go on the road recruiting.

“I’m not out golfing on my off day. At the end of the day, you are a great coach if you have great players. That’s really my No. 1 priority.”

24/7 Motor

The motor never stops. On road trips, Rooney is focused on the task at hand, even at the risk of catching some sleep.

“The motor doesn’t shut off much. He’s 24/7,” Godwin said. “He probably sleeps four hours a night and that’s the only time he might be calm a little bit. I still room with him on the road a couple of times and he still pops up in the middle of the night in his bed, so the engine never stops, even when he is sleeping.”

This season, Rooney is looking for his team to take that next step. He’s improved the pitching staff and has an offense coming back that hit a Conference USA record .343 as a team last season. He’ll bring that same hot-blooded emotion and passion into Friday’s opener, and he knows his players and his program are right there with him.

“I wear my emotions on my sleeve perhaps a little bit too much some times and I can admit that to a fault, but I think and hope that my guys take on that personality,” Rooney said. “When I show up to the field everyday, I don’t care who we are playing, I am expecting to win and I go into the game with a mindset knowing we are going to win. I think the guys feed off that and I certainly hope they do.”