As Grand Canyon constructs a new stadium around it, the baseball field remains the same as when program founder Dr. Dave Brazell laid it out in 1961.
He designed it. He mowed, fertilized and reseeded it. He chalked the lines. It is the field where he coached 19 of his 28 seasons as GCU baseball head coach.
Brazell's GCU legacy is indelible, and so is his affiliation with a baseball home that will keep his name with a fitting attachment to the field. The new stadium with the traditional field will be called Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark.
"I appreciate that very much," Brazell said. "That's nice of them. I appreciate them leaving the field just like it was. They didn't bother the field. They're putting in the stadium and everything around it, and the field is just like it was when I laid it out."
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Coach Brazell admires the sign that bears his name for the first time on Feb. 27, 1970.
Brazell, 92, remains a GCU fixture in more than sentiment and Lopes lore.
He and his wife, Mildred, attend men's basketball games with their season tickets on the north baseline, where Brazell can be found with his baseball bat cane. He originally joined the Lopes as their second men's basketball coach in 1951, when it was the young college's only sport. He started the baseball program a year later.
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Some 65 years after his association with the university began, Brazell still takes in campus events.
Brazell was the head coach of the men's basketball team for 13 years, until the baseball and basketball seasons' overlaps forced him to pick one. Brazell chose baseball, largely because it could play mostly home games. But he remains the only Grand Canyon basketball coach to lead an undefeated season – 20-0 in 1958-59.
"I don't give Coach (Dan) Majerle a hard time about that," Brazell said with a modest shrug to the distinction. "He's doing such a great job. I just pull for him. It's amazing at the games. I like the student section. It's been great."
Brazell took peeks into the baseball stadium's early construction by going to the Halo parking garage roof to the north of it.
"I've seen pictures of what it will look like," Brazell said. "It's going to be uptown, you bet. It's going to be as nice as any university stadium around."
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Brazell is scheduled to be in attendance when GCU Ballpark opens on Feb. 16, 2018.
When Brazell's baseball program debuted without a win in 1953, the team played on a dirt field where the current GCU track sits. The Lopes played eight seasons there.
"There wasn't a sprig of grass on the infield or outfield or anywhere," Brazell said. "It was pure sandlot."
In 1961, the baseball team moved to its current home field location and played on grass for the first time.
"We laid it out just like it is now," Brazell said. "The distance is about the same and everything. The bats weren't the same. The balls weren't the same. There was an eight-foot fence there and that was high enough. Very few balls went out of the park because the ball just didn't travel as far."
Brazell and students used picks and shovels to crack the hard surface and dig the dugouts. Fans stood or sat on the ground initially until wooden bleachers were added in a later season.
He scheduled games with Arizona State, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado State and Northern Arizona despite working for a dean who initially limited the Lopes to 20 games or fewer per season.
By 1967, the Lopes achieved their first national ranking – No. 7 in NAIA. In 1969, the Lopes played a 57-game season with 33 of them at home.
Brazell, the eldest living faculty member, also was the chairman of the health and physical education departments. He and Mildred were the first married couple to simultaneously earn doctorate degrees from Arizona State in 1967. She taught at Grand Canyon for 38 years, also in health and physical education.
"I feel very fortunate," Brazell said. "It's an unbelievable university. (GCU President) Mr. (Brian) Mueller took it over and I like that it is still a Christian university. I appreciate that a great deal."
Brazell's Grand Canyon baseball teams compiled a 728-385-8 record, won eight NAIA district titles, captured four NAIA Area II titles, reached four NAIA World Series, sent two players to the major leagues (Frank Snook and Tom Tellmann) and led Grand Canyon to the NAIA national championship in 1980.
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Brazell works with some of his players in 1975, five years before GCU's NAIA National Championship in 1980.
"I'm proud," Brazell said. "We worked hard and we got good players in there and that's the key thing. Some people say that the coaching is overemphasized. You do your coaching in the summertime when you contact players and get good ones in there."
Brazell, an American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee, won NAIA Coach of the Year twice and has his No. 20 jersey number retired at Grand Canyon. In 1987, his name was given to the former stadium, where he frequently watched seventh-year head coach Andy Stankiewicz build the baseball program into a Western Athletic Conference champion.
"He's done a great job," Brazell said. "He's a fine coach. I just like the way he runs things. The players are all dressed like they should be and act like they should. The coaches do a great job and they win."
And when the Lopes continue to win in a new stadium, they will do so on Brazell Field.
"That's quite an honor," Brazell said. "That's an honor that I appreciate very much."
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