DCCC, A’s coach makes Kansas Sports Hall

Phil Stephenson, coach of the Dodge City A's and the Dodge City Community College Conquistadors baseball team, has been tapped for induction into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.
    The class of 2008 was announced earlier this month and includes former New York Yankees Mike Torrez and Ralph Terry and former Jayhawk and NBA star Dave Robisch.
    Stephenson's induction into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in October will mark his seventh such honor. Just last year, he was honored in Lubbock, Texas, as part of the College Baseball Hall of Fame class of 2007.
    He also belongs to the Shocker Sports Hall of Fame at his alma mater, Wichita State University; the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame; the Wichita Sports Hall of Fame; the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame; and his high school hall of fame in Guthrie, Okla.
    "Each one of them has a significant meaning because they're all honoring different achievements," Stephenson said. "They're all special in their own right."
    His time at Wichita State University and his four seasons in major league baseball qualified him for the prestigious honor, as he and fellow major leaguer Joe Carter led the Shockers to the College World Series in the 1982 season under Phil's brother Gene, who still coaches at WSU.
    "In the beginning, it was tough on both of us (Stephenson and Gene)," Stephenson said, referring to his freshman season in 1979. "He wasn't going to cut me any slack because I was his brother, and he felt like he had to be a little tougher on me."
    "That first semester we didn't really get along. He was hard on me, and I didn't really take it well."
    But he also said his play on the field helped ease the tensions between himself and Gene, who is 15 years older.
    "When I was able to show that I was capable enough to do well, it made it easy for him to pencil me into the lineup every day," Stephenson said.
    And he was penciled in for most every day during his four years at Wichita State, including 47 games in the 1981 season in which he hit safely each game. At that point, he had set an NCAA record — one of 13 he would hold before he left Wichita State.
    Oklahoma State's Robin Ventura broke Stephenson's record in 1987 with a 58-game hit streak, but Phil said the consecutive-game hit streak record was his favorite college record to hold. He still holds NCAA Division One records for career runs (420), career stolen bases (206), career hits (418), career total bases (730) and career walks (300).
    "I was always proudest of the 47-game hit streak, because when it comes to hitting, that's pretty much you and the pitcher," Stephenson said. "Finding some way to get one to drop in there on a daily basis for basically almost an entire season was pretty remarkable."
Keeping it professional
    After his senior season, Stephenson played in the minor leagues for seven seasons before breaking into the majors in 1989. Even though he had hit .447 for the entire 1981 season at Wichita State, professional baseball was a humbling experience.
    "There were times when I thought I wasn't going to make it, not going to happen," Stephenson said. "You go from college ball to pro ball, and it's a different world. Everybody there has been the best of the best where they've been, and you still have to produce."
    Minor league statistics for players who played before the advent of the Internet are sparse. But Stephenson said when he finally broke into the majors in 1989 with the Chicago Cubs, it was because he had put up solid numbers in the minor leagues year after year.
    "I never put up numbers in pro ball that were mind-boggling that somebody would take notice and say, 'Hey, let's give this guy a chance every day,'" Stephenson said. "More than anything else, I think what got me to the big leagues was the fact that I put up decent numbers and I did it every year."
    Stephenson was traded to the San Diego Padres during the 1989 season and spent the next three years playing for San Diego alongside baseball icon Tony Gwynn.
    He said even today, he likes to keep up with Gwynn and Carter, his teammate from Wichita State who hit a home run in the ninth inning of game six of the 1993 World Series to win it for the Toronto Blue Jays.
    During his three-plus years in the majors, Stephenson said, he accepted the role he was given — a left-handed bat off the bench and the ability to play outfield and first base defensively.
    "It's frustrating to think that I would have liked to be able to play every day," he said. "I would have liked to know what I would have been able to do if I had gotten 400-500 at-bats in a season, but that opportunity never presented itself."
    After the 1992 season, Phil had been in professional baseball for more than 11 years. He finished his pro career splitting two more seasons among the Mexican League, the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals' minor-league system.
    He then went into coaching on the professional level. But after almost 20 years in the professional game, Stephenson was tired and wanted to be at home with his family more. 
    "I was worn out between playing and coaching for 18 years," Stephenson said. "Coaching is a different kind of grind because the hours coaches put in are longer than the what players put in."
    Then came the job at Dodge City Community College.
    Even after Stephenson and his family moved from Wichita to Dodge City, he is still multi-tasking with his job as head coach of the Conqs and the A's as well as his sports information director duties at DCCC.
    As he tries to get one thing done in his office, cluttered with baseballs, softballs, gloves and bats, inevitably a recruiting tip comes in or a meeting is scheduled. He's got to give his attention to something new.
    He may be going into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame as a Wichita State Shocker, but Stephenson is working harder now than he ever has.