Rod Dedeaux | |||
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Shortstop, College Baseball Coach | |||
Born: New Orleans, Louisiana |
February 17, 1914|||
Died: January 5, 2006 Glendale, California |
(aged 91)|||
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MLB debut | |||
September 28, 1935, for the Brooklyn Dodgers | |||
Last MLB appearance | |||
September 29, 1935, for the Brooklyn Dodgers | |||
MLB statistics | |||
Batting average | .250 | ||
Home runs | 0 | ||
Runs batted in | 1 | ||
Teams | |||
Raoul Martial "Rod" Dedeaux (February 17, 1914 – January 5, 2006) was an American college baseball coach who compiled what is widely recognized as among the greatest records of any coach in the sport's amateur history.
Dedeaux was the head baseball coach at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles for 45 seasons, and retired at age 72 in 1986. His teams won 11 national titles (College World Series), including a record five straight (1970–1974), and 28 conference championships. Dedeaux was named Coach of the Year six times by the Collegiate Baseball Coaches Association and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1970. He was named "Coach of the Century" by Collegiate Baseball magazine, and was one of the ten initial inductees to the College Baseball Hall of Fame.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Dedeaux moved to Los Angeles and graduated from Hollywood High School in 1932. He played baseball at the University of Southern California for three seasons. Dedeaux then played professional baseball briefly in 1935, appearing in two games as a shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers late in the season. The following year while playing for Dayton in the Mid-Atlantic League, he cracked a vertebra while swinging in cold weather, and his playing career ended. He then turned to coaching in the semi-pro and amateur ranks.