PHILADELPHIA - Former Rowan baseball standout John Yurkow '00 is entering his eighth season as the W. Joseph Blood Head Coach of Baseball at the University of Pennsylvania. After the shortened 2020 season, Yurkow owns a career record of 130-124-1, and a 73-48-1 mark in Ivy League play, while ranking fifth on the program's all-time wins list.
 
Yurkow, a second baseman for the Profs, was named to the All-America Second Team in 1999 and was a three-time All-NJAC selection, earning First Team honors as a senior. He still holds the Rowan career records for runs scored (179) and walks (176).
 
Yurkow helped the Profs make four straight NCAA appearances and compile a 113-46 record during his career. The three-year team captain was a member of the 1999 squad that won the NJAC Championship and posted a 36-8 record, marking one of the best seasons in school history.
 
After his playing career ended, Yurkow was an assistant coach with the Profs for two years before serving in the same role at Duke University for four seasons. He then joined the Penn staff as an assistant coach and was in that position for seven years before being promoted to head coach in 2013.

The native of Williamstown, NJ, spoke with RowanAthletics.com:

Last season, your team was picked to finish first in the Ivy League in the preseason poll. Then the pandemic hit, and your season was canceled after eight games. Obviously, that was a great disappointment, but how was it compounded by the high expectations for that team?
 
I try not to think about that, to be honest, because it's somewhat depressing and disappointing. We had a really talented roster last year, a really good group of kids with good leadership on the team, so it made it even tougher when the decision came down that everybody had to cancel spring athletics. It was extremely disappointing knowing what we thought we could achieve on the field.
 
What has been the biggest challenge coaching a team during the pandemic and in preparing them for what will hopefully be a return to play in 2021?
 
I think the toughest part is not having the daily interaction with the team, the players and the coaching staff, in person and face to face. That's the part that I think I miss the most. It's things you take for granted, just spending time talking with your players, not even about the baseball side of it… That's the stuff that you don't realize that you miss. Being around young people who have a lot of energy and they're excited to be at the field working on their craft. Obviously, the teaching aspect of it is a big one - the love of teaching and trying to help kids excel and become their best self on the field. Then there's the competition part and you miss that. I think anybody that's involved in athletics, you get into because you really like to compete. I think it's those three things really have been difficult.
 
You had an outstanding career at Rowan and played for four very good teams, including the 1999 team that set the school record. What made those teams so successful?
 
I think there are a couple of things. One, the makeup of the roster – we had a lot of tough, motivated, talented guys on that team. It was a very close knit group off the field as well. We also had very good leadership on the team. The coaches, I thought, did a great job. I had an opportunity to play for two coaches at Rowan. Juan Ranero - I played for him for three years and he recruited me – I thought he was a great coach and a mentor. And then John Cole, for my senior year, I thought did a really good job in getting our team prepared on a very short schedule. He was hired in December. We didn't have a coach in the fall of my senior year. Coach Bryan Carmichael, an assistant coach, ran the team. So we were really up against it and for the time that we had to prepare, I thought he did a great job getting us ready to play. It turned out that we won an NJAC championship.

What was your most memorable moment at Rowan?
 
Our senior year we were a game back from William Paterson in the regular season. We had a home doubleheader and it was Senior Day and I led off and on the first pitch of the game I hit a home run to left centerfield. It was a huge game for us. We needed to win both games to win the regular-season title. I homered in the first inning and we wound up winning both games and it was a big momentum swing. Obviously the team was fired up. That was definitely one and then going on to win the conference tournament too – that was a really good year for us.
 
Rowan head coach and former teammate Mike Dickson credits you for the records he set because you were on base so frequently, that teams had to pitch to him. What would you like people to remember about your career and how you played the game?
 
It's good that he finally admitted that… I'd just like them to know that I showed up every day, I played really hard. I wasn't the most super skilled athlete but I think I squeezed the most out of my ability. I like to say that I was a really good competitor and wasn't going to back down from anybody. I think I was a leader – I was a three-year captain at Rowan and I'm very proud of that. It's something I think about, the responsibility of trying to keep the team together and achieve a common goal. I think it set me up to be a coach, to be honest with you.
 
What did you take from your playing career at Rowan that you used in developing your coaching philosophy?
 
Being a captain and having a lot of responsibility. I was fortunate that by playing for Juan and John that I was able to see from a coach's perspective a lot more what it was all about, instead of just a player's perspective. It really opened my eyes up to coaching and what it was really all about. I was fortunate they let me in to experience that and the more I went along in my playing career, the more obvious it was that I wanted to be able to teach and do the same things that those guys did to help me.
 
What advice do you give your players as they leave your program to become professionals, either in baseball or in other careers?
 
One of the things I try to stress to them is that they're going to have a huge advantage being a student-athlete. I think that's why student-athletes are so marketable and they're so sought after. Because they've already shown they can thrive in a team environment, they've shown that they can work through adversity. If there's going to be sacrifices that they have to make in the professional world, they're used to doing that. I think those types of things that they've done for their four-year career in college are the same things that are going to allow them to become successful in their professional career as well. Those are things I try to reinforce with our kids from the time that they arrive on campus up until just before they leave. We tell them that baseball is four years of your life and you're making a decision, whether you go to the University of Pennsylvania or you go to Rowan, that decision is going to affect the next 40 years of your life. Your degree and your education is really what's going to carry you through, for most people. So those things are very, very important.