BRENDAN KING | STAFF REPORTER | baking@butler.edu
In the spring of 1999, the Northern Illinois University Huskies baseball team finished their season 4-51-1 with a 1-31 conference record. Head coach Frank Del Medico was fired and the program looked like it was dead. Until Dave Schrage, new Butler baseball head coach, took over in 2000.
Schrage came into the Northern Illinois program not knowing what to expect. After just one conference win and four wins total, the players had stopped believing in themselves, and it looked like the Huskies baseball program was on track for a rough decade.