What's it like to be back with the Cal State Fullerton baseball program?
It's almost like we moved out of the house and leased it out to someone else and now we're moving back in. It takes a little bit of time to find out what each closet had in it, what each drawer had in it, where the kitchen utensils go. It is good to be home. The transition, even though it was difficult, was a lot easier than it would have been if I hadn't been at this place and known a lot of the people who are still in place here, from the administration to the support staff. There also are still a couple of holdovers of kids that I didn't coach but whom I recruited into this program.
This university was a huge part of my life. When I was first dating my wife she was working here in the development office. My family have all been a part of it, and my dad was always a Titan while I was here as an assistant. My mom watched her last baseball game here in 2001 - the regionals - and that was the last baseball game she saw before she passed away the next spring. So my ties to Fullerton as a player and as a coach are pretty deep. And that's why it's so special to come back and take over the leadership role of a program that I've always looked up to, and a program that I was trying to mimic a little bit down the freeway at UCI.
Was there a factor that was most influential in your decision to take the job?
I would have to say Titan baseball in general. After I left this program I found how difficult it was to recruit kids away from the tradition of this program, the excellence of this program. We were making headway recruiting at UCI, but there's a little difference in excitement when kids get phone calls and you say you're from Cal State Fullerton. There are many kids in Southern California who grow up wanting to be Titans. They've gone to the camps or they've attended baseball games with their parents, so they're aware of the program and how successful it's been. That'll bode well for us down the line. Titan baseball carries a lot of weight in Southern California and around the country.
What's special about Titan baseball as opposed to other programs in the Big West, and even in the rest of the country?
I think it's a consistency of greatness. Cal State Fullerton hasn't been built on superstars, it's been built on kids who come in with a lot of heart and desire and a strong work ethic, who have made themselves great players. I'm looking across the room right now at a picture of Mark Kotsay, who was really kind of unrecruited out of high school and kind of went unnoticed for whatever reason. Cal State Fullerton recruited him, and the story is told. He wins the Golden Spikes Award, he wins the national championship and he's played in the big leagues for many years. [Kotsay currently is a center fielder for the Oakland Athletics.] I think that's what this program is built on: We haven't always gotten the top tier recruits from around the country or in our area - USC and UCLA kind of have first pickings on that - but we've got the right kind of players here who can carry on the tradition of the hard work and who can be the best team they can be day in and day out.
What were the various reactions when you left UCI?
My family was caught in the middle of the whole transition and that's unfortunate, but that's part of life. That's what goes on sometimes in the workplace. At UCI, after what we'd accomplished as a coaching staff and as a program, it was looked on as a kind of betrayal. Here, it was all open arms and welcoming me back. This program had been devastated [by the resignation of Horton] just like UCI was when they lost a coach. The difference is that here the coach left three weeks into the season and I left three weeks prior to the start of our school year. It's bittersweet because I left behind some wonderful kids and some wonderful relationships. But I'm ready to start new ones here and the fact that people have made me feel so welcome has convinced me this was the right decision.
Why did you succeed at UCI?
Again, it was a copy of how this program was built. I'm sure that 30 years ago this place was not seen as a baseball factory or a program that should be competing on a national level, and that's exactly what we did over there at UCI. It's ironic that we beat the likes of Augie Garrido of Texas through the regional run and we beat the likes of George Horton and Cal State Fullerton during our College World Series run. We felt there was no reason we couldn't become a power in the Big West and in the country. But it happened faster than any of us imagined that it was going to happen. It shows that if you have a group of people who are on the same page and who have the same ideas and the same passion for one another that you can move mountains with your success if you do it as a team. And that's how this program was built and that's how it's going to go forward.
We run our program like a family. There's a leader, but there's no one in the program who's more important than another person. We're trying to mentor young men into their lives as adults. We know the percentage of our guys going into professional baseball, and we want to give everyone that opportunity. But we also know the percentage of guys who will not make it. We're mentoring them every day to be successful in whatever their endeavors are in life. We're recruiting well-rounded scholar-athletes.
How much are scholastics emphasized within the baseball program?
I think it all goes into the category of discipline. To be successful you have to be disciplined on and off the field. That speaks to the baseball side, to the academic side and to the personal side. We're continually insisting to our young men that we're going to do everything right as much as possible. We realize we're human beings and we're going to make mistakes, but we can't repeat mistakes and we have to learn from each other's mistakes. When I look back on how my life was formed, it wasn't just my mom and dad, who did a wonderful job of raising me, but the coaches I played under and the coaches I coached for who allowed me to get to the level I'm at today. And that's what we as a coaching staff want to give back to our kids.
How does the reputation of the school, academically as well as athletically, help in recruiting?
It definitely helps us. The location of the campus, the communications school, the business school, the kinesiology department, and so many other schools on campus are intriguing to student-athletes. Now that they've tightened up entrance requirements you're starting to see a more educated young man. So it's important that you're not just selling the baseball aspect, but the academic aspect as well. What we have here is a pretty well-rounded picture. Also, on the personal side of things, our location in the county is very attractive.
How does the physical facility - Goodwin Field and the training areas - aid recruiting?
It really is a recruiting tool. Part of it is the number of people the young men get to play in front of. We've been averaging about 2,500 people a game. That's pretty attractive to a young man from California. There aren't many programs in California that are attracting a fan base like that to every one of their games. Our community has shown a lot of appreciation for our baseball program. One of the things I think back to during my last year here as an assistant, when we won the national championship in 2004, was the outpouring of the thousands of people who attended the downtown parade. It was amazing. I never would have imagined in a million years that when we got back from capturing the national championship that there would be that many people who had a genuine interest in Titan baseball. I'll never forget that day.
