'You just know when it's time': UWM head baseball coach Scott Doffek calls it a career
After 17 years at the helm of the lone NCAA Division I baseball team in the state and 29 years with the program, UW-Milwaukee head coach Scott Doffek is calling it a career.
The Arrowhead product informed his team of his decision in a meeting Friday morning, a little more than two months after the Panthers’ 2023 season ended with a loss to top-seeded Wright State in the Horizon League Tournament.
“I think you just know when it’s time,” Doffek said. “This would be my 30th year here coming up in September. That’s a long time to be doing one thing. So, I’m just in a position now where I feel like the program is in a good spot and I can step back and hand it off.
“I knew over the last couple years that I was getting close. Really, going into this last year I was kind of thinking along these lines. But I wasn’t completely sure.”
Doffek was the longest-tenured coach in any sport, men’s or women’s, at UWM.
“It is nearly impossible to put into words what Scott Doffek has meant to our baseball program,” athletic director Amanda Braun said. “He has been a part of the program since the beginning and has built it to where we are today.
“He has attracted incredible student-athletes and staff because of the way he approaches everything he does – with class, grit, perseverance and genuine care and concern for the growth and development of student-athletes.”
Doffek was a part of 785 victories at UWM and a school-record 438 as head coach, a post he accepted beginning in 2007 when he took the reins from former longtime Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jerry Augustine.
He came on board at UWM as the program was beginning its fifth year at the Division I level. The Panthers had gone from independent status to one year in the Mid-Continent to seven years in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference before finally joining the Horizon League in 2002.
UWM baseball began playing in 1957 as a member of the Chicagoland College Conference and will bring aboard its eighth head coach when Doffek’s replacement is named.
There was no baseball at UWM from 1974-81 and it played at the club level from 1982-86.
“If you look at it from the very beginning on, when me and Augie took on the job in the fall of ’94, we were starting from absolute scratch. Zero,” Doffek said. “And so, it’s just been a slow, steady build. We had a lot of success through the years. It’s also a program that has a lot of interesting challenges.”
Chief among those has been its lack of facilities, although its new 4,000-seat home – Franklin Field, which opened in 2020 – was a huge step in the right direction with Doffek helping spearhead the Panthers’ move there after many years at Henry Aaron Field at Lincoln Park in Glendale.
“For a long, long time we struggled with facilities and really still do in some regard – our on-campus situation isn’t baseball-conducive, really, and you’re never going to fight and beat the weather situation; that just is what it is,” Doffek said. “Travel becomes very tough. We’ve had to fight a lot of different things over the years.
“But that being said, I think we’ve come a long, long way. There’s really a lot of boxes that we have checked off. There’s still some left that need to be addressed.”
Doffek was asked what those were.
“Right now, we don’t have really anything that’s baseball-related on campus,” he said. “We don’t have a locker room; we don’t have much of anything. Short of a couple batting cages coming down over a basketball court we’re pretty deficient.
“So, we have to do a lot of our stuff off campus and make the most of what we do have on-campus and from a player-development standpoint those are critical hours spent. But I think more than that is just the recruiting piece.
“When you have something of your own on campus you can show them and be proud of and really run a program out of, I think you’re going to see a big jump.”
UWM has been to four NCAA Tournaments with Doffek on staff – 2010 was the Panthers’ last appearance – and won four Horizon League Tournament titles and three regular-season crowns.
Probably the seminal moment in program history came in 1999 when, playing their first-ever game in the NCAA Tournament, the Panthers upset No. 1-seeded Rice University at the Astrodome in Houston.
“They were the No. 1 team in the country, and in front of 10,000 Texas fans in their home state. Anytime you knock off the No. 1 team anytime of the year, it’s pretty monumental. But to do it in the NCAA Tournament?” Doffek said. “We basically had nothing but Wisconsin kids on that team. That’s a tough moment to beat, right?”
There have also been 24 players selected in the Major League Baseball draft with Daulton Varsho, the 68th overall pick in 2017 by the Arizona Diamondbacks, the first to break through to the majors in July of 2020.
Varsho, now with the Toronto Blue Jays, played at UWM from 2015-17.
“I’ve had just 50-some odd players that have been drafted or signed to professional organizations and for Daulton Varsho to finally get called up – he’s the first guy to actually put on a major-league uniform,” said Doffek. “I’ve had so many that were just a razor-thin distance away from getting that call. But he’s the first one to get it.
“What’s cool about that is he deserves it; he works his tail off, obviously a great player. It’s really his work ethic that made the difference. I think it just sets a path to what can be accomplished. You don’t have to play in the SEC or the Big Ten or in the south – you can come from Wisconsin, you can go to school in Wisconsin, you can develop in Wisconsin, and you can play in the big leagues.”
Doffek, who played from 1989-93 in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, indicated he might not yet be finished with baseball.
“We’re going to take a couple months here and just kind of figure that out,” said Doffek. A few weeks shy of turning 55, Doffek lives in Menomonee Falls with his wife, Kara. The couple’s two children, daughter Kori and son Ty, are UWM graduates.
“I’ve had some opportunities to maybe get in the pro game again; that might be interesting. I’m not exactly sure. I’m not going to rush into a decision, though. But this has been a grind. It’s a lot of work and it’s kind of a heavy burden to carry.”
Doffek said he’s rooting for associate head coach Shaun Wegner to be hired as his replacement. Wegner played at UWM from 2006-10 and returned to his alma mater as coach in 2017.
“I’m sure hoping,” he said. “The timing of me stepping down had something to do with it. I really hope they choose to stay in-house here with Coach Wegner and Cory Bigler underneath him. They’re phenomenal people first off, but they’re really good baseball men who know what they’re doing in the college game and I think they’ll take this thing to another level.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: After 29 years with UWM baseball, head coach Scott Doffek retiring
