Here's a link to his presser. But if you can't watch, here's the transcript.
Here were my takeaways from the conference (this is Stephen)
Press conferences introducing new head coaches are upbeat. When Steve Rodriguez stepped to the podium, his first action was to put on a Baylor baseball jersey and ball cap. He joked quite a bit, and talked about the difficulty of leaving his former college, Pepperdine, to come to Baylor, and the factors that led to that decision.
After playing college ball at Pepperdine and having a career in the major and minor leagues, Rodriguez returned to his alma mater, spending the last twelve years as head coach there. Working at a small Christian University in Malibu, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, had to be a pleasant place to establish a career. He’d played college ball there, then gotten both his bachelor’s and masters degrees at Pepperdine.
Moving to Baylor is different, as the Big 12 is higher profile than the West Coast Conference, and he’s ’s leaving a place that’s been his home base for over half his life. He mentioned that on social media, he caught a lot of attention for leaving Malibu for Waco. He was certainly comfortable there, and under no pressure to make a move. Key factors he mentioned in his decision were the facilities at Baylor, the friendliness of the Baylor staff, and that his family loved the school and the area.
During the interview, he mentioned that he’s still assembling his staff, and that he believes that’s falling into place well. When asked if it was too late to do any recruiting for the upcoming year, he said, “We’re always recruiting.” On the difficulties of recruiting baseball players to a private college with limited scholarship opportunities, he noted that Pepperdine is also a private college, and that he was looking for players who wanted to be at Baylor.
Rodriguez said the other people in athletics had already reached out to him, and made him feel like part of the family, and that he’d been contacted by “about twenty churches.” He also said that he wanted to fully support the other athletic programs and intended to attend games in all the other sports, mentioning not just the big three (football, baseball/softball, basketball) but also soccer.
His personality is a big change from Steve Smith, who became a little more prickly each year over the last few seasons. Smith, though, was trying to deal with a deteriorating situation, while Rodriguez is coming in with a clean slate, and it’s a lot easier to be upbeat in the latter situation.
On his style of play, Rodriguez didn’t list a specific style. He has a way he wants to play, but he prefers to remain flexible and take advantage of the strengths of individuals. On his current players, he said that rather than looking at video, he wants to see them live on the field, as he does not think that video or stats gives him the full story on player strengths and weaknesses.
HEAD COACH STEVE RODRIGUEZ
Opening statement:
“I just want to say thank you. I know there were some really funny comments on social media in regards to Malibu to Waco. The biggest description I can give is Malibu is an amazing place, great institution, and it has been an amazing opportunity and lifestyle for my family. I brought my daughter here in October to see Baylor University. Luckily, we are very blessed to know Judge Starr from Pepperdine; we were here [and] we had a chance to talk to him. We were at that one football game, it was TCU, it was okay [laughs]. We were just blessed. From my standpoint, just like a lot of other places, I don’t really get to see, as a coach, anything other than the field. When we got here I got to be a dad; so I went on the tours with my daughter, I got to see how she reacted to things, and the blessings. The amazing people here, they were talking to her, praying with her, and in my mind I just felt very touched by it. When we went home, my wife asked me ‘what do you think?’ I said that ‘that is one of the most amazing places I’ve seen.’ She looked at me and said, ‘you don’t say that about a lot of places,’ and I don’t. Just the faith aspect, the people, and then you see the facilities, which is a great testament to Ian [McCaw]. You see the facilities what they look like and the success all the athletic teams are having. It is a pretty impressive place and something I could not wait to get a hold of. It’s like I was talking to some of the players: ‘let’s get out in the field.’ This is part of it, I get it. Social media is just kind of fun thing to me. I like to get people excited about things. I made it [playing professional baseball] because I love this game. Our players will see it when we get out in the field. I love getting out there, I will be taking ground balls with them, hitting with them, we are going to do it, and we are going to do it together. That is one of the biggest things to me – when you get on that field nothing else matters. I had some horrible tragedies on teams, in regards to players and families. I just know that everything is always the same in that baseball field. You just get to play, you get to work, and it is one of those places where you actually get to see the hard work pay off. I have talked to couple of other coaches here. The biggest part for me, as a coach, is when there is that ‘aha’ moment when you get to see those athletes understand it, and get it, and it clicks, and then all of the sudden you get to see them getting excited about something again. It’s kind of like geometry, for anyone who remembers geometry, it didn’t make sense and then all of the sudden you were like, ‘oh my gosh, I get it,’ and then all of the sudden you get excited about doing math. I am really blessed by the number of people – this is half of Pepperdine it looks like – just the number of people here. Hopefully, you are excited about coming out and watching some baseball. I know I am going to be excited to be out there. The funny thing is that I do not know what we have. These players, they get to start from scratch with me. We are going to start together from Day One and we are going to go from there.”
On what made Baylor attractive to him:
“To be honest, I came here and it was the people. When you come here and you get a chance to meet the people, you get to see them, interact with the students and student-athletes, and to be honest, strangers. We got here and we got to talk to some of the professors – they welcomed us in. My daughter got asked to babysit a pig, and she was like, ‘oh my, that is absolutely amazing.’ In Malibu you would not get that, maybe a little different animal. Those are the things for me. I did not get to see the facilities, other than when we get to play here a couple of years ago. I just had a chance to see the people, had a chance to see the campus, had a chance to see the environment, and then when you go to a football game and you see excitement in the student body and just the people football brings – it was something that was really special to be a part of.”
On getting to know the players:
“You know what is great, I get to be a dad to 35 guys. I get to be a sociologist, psychologist, you name it, I’ll get to do it. The biggest thing, like I tell them, is I am going to know them better than their parents know them, because that is what is going to make me know exactly what buttons to push to get them to go a little bit harder. In my opinion, relationships with the players are one of the best things you can do in regards to the professional aspect of it. They need to know that I am here for them, but at the same time, I need to know that they are here for me as well. When we get our trust and that relationship – it’s not going to be all great and it’s not going to be all roses – but at the same time it’s going to be a lot of fun because we are going to work hard and see some success.”
On how is he going to sell an expensive school like Baylor to future recruits:
“Baylor is going to sell itself, it really is. The biggest thing for me is to find the kids that want to be here. I do not want to convince someone who does not want to be here and play. If you do not want to be here that is fine, there is a place for you. I want to find the guys from all over this country, from Texas, California, Oklahoma, Louisiana. If they want to be a Baylor Bear, let’s do it. If they are going to be good enough for us and help us win, let’s do it. The finances, Pepperdine is expensive, Baylor is expensive, we have to find the people who know exactly what that is and I am not going to convince them to be here. When they want to be here, they are going, and they are going to play hard, and they are going to play well.”
On how will he evaluate the current players at Baylor:
“I’ve seen statistics, I can look at film, but it is just like the recruiting process. I want to see it, I want to see what it looks like, I want to see what the technique looks like, I want to see what the passion looks like. You can’t see a lot of those on paper, you can’t see that passion and that desire on video – I can see it in person, I just want to see up front and personal. Like I tell the recruits, ‘I don’t want to talk about how it looks on video, I want to see what it looks in person.’ A person will not step on this campus unless he has been seen by at least four pairs of eyes. We want to see him twice, or three times, or four times.”
On whether it will take time to have a winning team or not:
“It’s going to depend on the players. We are going to work hard. If we win right now, great. All I know is we are going to get better. Whether it is a little bit or a lot, that is going to be depending on how fast our learning curve can be. I will put a little pressure on our coaches and make sure we are doing well.”
On the style of play he will bring to the team:
“As you can see I am not a big energy guy [laughs]. I love energy. Coach (Jon) Strauss is going to be coming from Pepperdine. As soon as he wakes up he is like an energizer bunny. He is very intense, very high energy. The play we are going to have it all depends on the players. The best way I can describe is a couple of years ago we had five guys hit 10 home runs. I wasn’t depending on us being a big power team but when that starts to develop, our style of play develops a little bit differently. Sometimes we have guys who can really run, then we will develop a little more speed type of game. That is what is great for a player like me. I wasn’t very talented, I was just fortunate enough to play as hard as I can and get a few lucky breaks to play in the big leagues. There are all sorts of different styles of play, but I don’t want to focus on just one style of play, because if all of the sudden something doesn’t go well or I don’t have the personnel, I need to know how adapt to what we have. There is not going to be just one specific style, but I will tell you there is going to be some good baseball played out there and the energy will be out there.”
On being officially on campus:
“The transition is still going, I believe we are heading home tomorrow late afternoon, and then coming back next week. There might be one more shift. We had to come here and get a handle on a bunch of other things. Once I get back I’ll probably be here for a while.”
On building the rest of his staff:
“I am doing very well thank you. We are pretty close to having it solidified, just a matter of making a couple of phone calls.”
On eating his first Vitek’s Gut Pack:
“Whoa! What is funny is I was thinking I want to go after the big one, then all of a sudden Will [Lattimore], our facilities guy, said, ‘come on, Coach, you have to go for the small one.’ I was like, ‘come on, Will, you have to go for the big one.’ Then the gentleman working behind the counter goes: ‘I just go for a small one,’ and he was a guy big guy, and I was like, ‘small it is.’ I’ll tell you what though, the flavors and the jalapeno sausage deal, I am all in. I like my food that is why I work out – so I can eat.”
On overcoming NCAA sanctions at Pepperdine:
“I think that is a huge success for us. Simply, from my standpoint, we won, and we got to the Super Regionals on about nine scholarships. Please understand that the sanctions that came were nothing that was really done by me or my staff. Five teams got affected. It was a financial aid and a compliance issue. Nothing that we knew we were doing. Our athletic director, Dr. [Steve] Potts, came in and we had a head coaches meeting and said we had a big problem. He said we committed a violation and five teams were affected by it, to be honest none of us knew what he was talking about. He told us what happened and we were like, ‘how does that affect us?’ They pretty much said you are going to have this many scholarships taken away from you for the next four years. In my mind I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this is like a punch in the face,’ but at the same time I told my coaches this could be our greatest moment ever because this is the moment where we have to really coach now, we have to really recruit, we have to find the kids who really want to be here. We are docked three scholarships, so let’s find a way to make this a great moment for us. Three out of the four years we got to the postseason, we got the Super Regional last year, we got to the Regional championship for the other two years, and this upcoming year is the last year they have to deal with it. The way I look at it, it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me because I became a better coach and I know Pepperdine is going to be a better place because everything has been fixed in that area. It is my understanding that something similar happened here about 10 or 12 years ago, but sometimes things happen without our knowledge. But as long as they get fixed, only nothing but great things can come from that.”
On whether he is currently recruiting kids to Baylor already:
“We are always recruiting; we are always trying to get better. As long as I am able to get a guy in – I do not know what the time lines are yet – but we are already actively looking for a couple of guys.”
On how he’ll attempt to reenergize the student fan base:
“There’s already been some things that I have kind of been talking about in regards to getting something going for football games. We have a great pathway from the parking lot all the way over there to McLane Stadium. Maybe we can swing by the baseball field to get something; I don’t know if it is food or whatever it is. I am a big fan about sports, I’ll be at football, basketball, I don’t even know all the sports you all have here yet, but I am going to be at them. I love watching athletes, I love watching athletes compete, doing what they do well, and in my opinion there is nothing better than watching an athlete do something really, really well because there are not a lot of people who can do that. I am a big fan and I want all of our guys to go to those athletic events as well – to create that buzz, to let them know we are behind other sports, and hopefully we can get those sports behind us as well. There were times at Pepperdine when I would stop practice because our soccer team was playing North Carolina. I would go, ‘hey, practice stops right now, because we are heading up to go and cheer for our ladies, then we’ll come back and finish practice.’ For me that is a big thing.”
On meeting some of the other Baylor coaches:
“I just met the basketball staff and there is a lack of energy in that office [laughs]. I was like, man, how do they do that, and then I saw all the coffee, and I was like, that’s it. I’ve just been blessed. I’ve receive lots of text messages and emails from the staff saying, ‘when you are ready, I look forward to meeting you and showing you around.’ For me that is such a warm and healthy feeling, because it is a bit scary to uproot your family from 16 years in Malibu to come 1,500 miles here. When you know you got that kind of base -- I’ve been invited to like 20 churches now, which is another big thing for us to find our church where we can nestle down – those have been amazing blessings for us.”
On choosing Baylor over Pepperdine:
“I always talk to my wife about certain places I would love to coach and there are maybe two other places I see myself coaching at. Baylor just happened to be one of them. I never wanted to leave Pepperdine in regards to going to find something better – it was an amazing place. I just really love the atmosphere here, the facilities, the knowledge that I know our athletic department is always looking to upgrade everything. Everybody always says we have to keep up with the Joneses. I kind of like being Mr. Jones, and that is a testament to Ian McCaw and the other administration here that we are trying to stay ahead of the curve instead of trying to follow the curve. If you haven’t met our strength and conditioning people – I walked out of there saying, ‘how can athletes not get better?’ We have a nutritionist, you name it, we’ve got it. From that standpoint, I say, ‘all I have to do is coach baseball and these guys have everything they want to get better.’”
Here were my takeaways from the conference (this is Stephen)
Press conferences introducing new head coaches are upbeat. When Steve Rodriguez stepped to the podium, his first action was to put on a Baylor baseball jersey and ball cap. He joked quite a bit, and talked about the difficulty of leaving his former college, Pepperdine, to come to Baylor, and the factors that led to that decision.
After playing college ball at Pepperdine and having a career in the major and minor leagues, Rodriguez returned to his alma mater, spending the last twelve years as head coach there. Working at a small Christian University in Malibu, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, had to be a pleasant place to establish a career. He’d played college ball there, then gotten both his bachelor’s and masters degrees at Pepperdine.
Moving to Baylor is different, as the Big 12 is higher profile than the West Coast Conference, and he’s ’s leaving a place that’s been his home base for over half his life. He mentioned that on social media, he caught a lot of attention for leaving Malibu for Waco. He was certainly comfortable there, and under no pressure to make a move. Key factors he mentioned in his decision were the facilities at Baylor, the friendliness of the Baylor staff, and that his family loved the school and the area.
During the interview, he mentioned that he’s still assembling his staff, and that he believes that’s falling into place well. When asked if it was too late to do any recruiting for the upcoming year, he said, “We’re always recruiting.” On the difficulties of recruiting baseball players to a private college with limited scholarship opportunities, he noted that Pepperdine is also a private college, and that he was looking for players who wanted to be at Baylor.
Rodriguez said the other people in athletics had already reached out to him, and made him feel like part of the family, and that he’d been contacted by “about twenty churches.” He also said that he wanted to fully support the other athletic programs and intended to attend games in all the other sports, mentioning not just the big three (football, baseball/softball, basketball) but also soccer.
His personality is a big change from Steve Smith, who became a little more prickly each year over the last few seasons. Smith, though, was trying to deal with a deteriorating situation, while Rodriguez is coming in with a clean slate, and it’s a lot easier to be upbeat in the latter situation.
On his style of play, Rodriguez didn’t list a specific style. He has a way he wants to play, but he prefers to remain flexible and take advantage of the strengths of individuals. On his current players, he said that rather than looking at video, he wants to see them live on the field, as he does not think that video or stats gives him the full story on player strengths and weaknesses.
HEAD COACH STEVE RODRIGUEZ
Opening statement:
“I just want to say thank you. I know there were some really funny comments on social media in regards to Malibu to Waco. The biggest description I can give is Malibu is an amazing place, great institution, and it has been an amazing opportunity and lifestyle for my family. I brought my daughter here in October to see Baylor University. Luckily, we are very blessed to know Judge Starr from Pepperdine; we were here [and] we had a chance to talk to him. We were at that one football game, it was TCU, it was okay [laughs]. We were just blessed. From my standpoint, just like a lot of other places, I don’t really get to see, as a coach, anything other than the field. When we got here I got to be a dad; so I went on the tours with my daughter, I got to see how she reacted to things, and the blessings. The amazing people here, they were talking to her, praying with her, and in my mind I just felt very touched by it. When we went home, my wife asked me ‘what do you think?’ I said that ‘that is one of the most amazing places I’ve seen.’ She looked at me and said, ‘you don’t say that about a lot of places,’ and I don’t. Just the faith aspect, the people, and then you see the facilities, which is a great testament to Ian [McCaw]. You see the facilities what they look like and the success all the athletic teams are having. It is a pretty impressive place and something I could not wait to get a hold of. It’s like I was talking to some of the players: ‘let’s get out in the field.’ This is part of it, I get it. Social media is just kind of fun thing to me. I like to get people excited about things. I made it [playing professional baseball] because I love this game. Our players will see it when we get out in the field. I love getting out there, I will be taking ground balls with them, hitting with them, we are going to do it, and we are going to do it together. That is one of the biggest things to me – when you get on that field nothing else matters. I had some horrible tragedies on teams, in regards to players and families. I just know that everything is always the same in that baseball field. You just get to play, you get to work, and it is one of those places where you actually get to see the hard work pay off. I have talked to couple of other coaches here. The biggest part for me, as a coach, is when there is that ‘aha’ moment when you get to see those athletes understand it, and get it, and it clicks, and then all of the sudden you get to see them getting excited about something again. It’s kind of like geometry, for anyone who remembers geometry, it didn’t make sense and then all of the sudden you were like, ‘oh my gosh, I get it,’ and then all of the sudden you get excited about doing math. I am really blessed by the number of people – this is half of Pepperdine it looks like – just the number of people here. Hopefully, you are excited about coming out and watching some baseball. I know I am going to be excited to be out there. The funny thing is that I do not know what we have. These players, they get to start from scratch with me. We are going to start together from Day One and we are going to go from there.”
On what made Baylor attractive to him:
“To be honest, I came here and it was the people. When you come here and you get a chance to meet the people, you get to see them, interact with the students and student-athletes, and to be honest, strangers. We got here and we got to talk to some of the professors – they welcomed us in. My daughter got asked to babysit a pig, and she was like, ‘oh my, that is absolutely amazing.’ In Malibu you would not get that, maybe a little different animal. Those are the things for me. I did not get to see the facilities, other than when we get to play here a couple of years ago. I just had a chance to see the people, had a chance to see the campus, had a chance to see the environment, and then when you go to a football game and you see excitement in the student body and just the people football brings – it was something that was really special to be a part of.”
On getting to know the players:
“You know what is great, I get to be a dad to 35 guys. I get to be a sociologist, psychologist, you name it, I’ll get to do it. The biggest thing, like I tell them, is I am going to know them better than their parents know them, because that is what is going to make me know exactly what buttons to push to get them to go a little bit harder. In my opinion, relationships with the players are one of the best things you can do in regards to the professional aspect of it. They need to know that I am here for them, but at the same time, I need to know that they are here for me as well. When we get our trust and that relationship – it’s not going to be all great and it’s not going to be all roses – but at the same time it’s going to be a lot of fun because we are going to work hard and see some success.”
On how is he going to sell an expensive school like Baylor to future recruits:
“Baylor is going to sell itself, it really is. The biggest thing for me is to find the kids that want to be here. I do not want to convince someone who does not want to be here and play. If you do not want to be here that is fine, there is a place for you. I want to find the guys from all over this country, from Texas, California, Oklahoma, Louisiana. If they want to be a Baylor Bear, let’s do it. If they are going to be good enough for us and help us win, let’s do it. The finances, Pepperdine is expensive, Baylor is expensive, we have to find the people who know exactly what that is and I am not going to convince them to be here. When they want to be here, they are going, and they are going to play hard, and they are going to play well.”
On how will he evaluate the current players at Baylor:
“I’ve seen statistics, I can look at film, but it is just like the recruiting process. I want to see it, I want to see what it looks like, I want to see what the technique looks like, I want to see what the passion looks like. You can’t see a lot of those on paper, you can’t see that passion and that desire on video – I can see it in person, I just want to see up front and personal. Like I tell the recruits, ‘I don’t want to talk about how it looks on video, I want to see what it looks in person.’ A person will not step on this campus unless he has been seen by at least four pairs of eyes. We want to see him twice, or three times, or four times.”
On whether it will take time to have a winning team or not:
“It’s going to depend on the players. We are going to work hard. If we win right now, great. All I know is we are going to get better. Whether it is a little bit or a lot, that is going to be depending on how fast our learning curve can be. I will put a little pressure on our coaches and make sure we are doing well.”
On the style of play he will bring to the team:
“As you can see I am not a big energy guy [laughs]. I love energy. Coach (Jon) Strauss is going to be coming from Pepperdine. As soon as he wakes up he is like an energizer bunny. He is very intense, very high energy. The play we are going to have it all depends on the players. The best way I can describe is a couple of years ago we had five guys hit 10 home runs. I wasn’t depending on us being a big power team but when that starts to develop, our style of play develops a little bit differently. Sometimes we have guys who can really run, then we will develop a little more speed type of game. That is what is great for a player like me. I wasn’t very talented, I was just fortunate enough to play as hard as I can and get a few lucky breaks to play in the big leagues. There are all sorts of different styles of play, but I don’t want to focus on just one style of play, because if all of the sudden something doesn’t go well or I don’t have the personnel, I need to know how adapt to what we have. There is not going to be just one specific style, but I will tell you there is going to be some good baseball played out there and the energy will be out there.”
On being officially on campus:
“The transition is still going, I believe we are heading home tomorrow late afternoon, and then coming back next week. There might be one more shift. We had to come here and get a handle on a bunch of other things. Once I get back I’ll probably be here for a while.”
On building the rest of his staff:
“I am doing very well thank you. We are pretty close to having it solidified, just a matter of making a couple of phone calls.”
On eating his first Vitek’s Gut Pack:
“Whoa! What is funny is I was thinking I want to go after the big one, then all of a sudden Will [Lattimore], our facilities guy, said, ‘come on, Coach, you have to go for the small one.’ I was like, ‘come on, Will, you have to go for the big one.’ Then the gentleman working behind the counter goes: ‘I just go for a small one,’ and he was a guy big guy, and I was like, ‘small it is.’ I’ll tell you what though, the flavors and the jalapeno sausage deal, I am all in. I like my food that is why I work out – so I can eat.”
On overcoming NCAA sanctions at Pepperdine:
“I think that is a huge success for us. Simply, from my standpoint, we won, and we got to the Super Regionals on about nine scholarships. Please understand that the sanctions that came were nothing that was really done by me or my staff. Five teams got affected. It was a financial aid and a compliance issue. Nothing that we knew we were doing. Our athletic director, Dr. [Steve] Potts, came in and we had a head coaches meeting and said we had a big problem. He said we committed a violation and five teams were affected by it, to be honest none of us knew what he was talking about. He told us what happened and we were like, ‘how does that affect us?’ They pretty much said you are going to have this many scholarships taken away from you for the next four years. In my mind I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this is like a punch in the face,’ but at the same time I told my coaches this could be our greatest moment ever because this is the moment where we have to really coach now, we have to really recruit, we have to find the kids who really want to be here. We are docked three scholarships, so let’s find a way to make this a great moment for us. Three out of the four years we got to the postseason, we got the Super Regional last year, we got to the Regional championship for the other two years, and this upcoming year is the last year they have to deal with it. The way I look at it, it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me because I became a better coach and I know Pepperdine is going to be a better place because everything has been fixed in that area. It is my understanding that something similar happened here about 10 or 12 years ago, but sometimes things happen without our knowledge. But as long as they get fixed, only nothing but great things can come from that.”
On whether he is currently recruiting kids to Baylor already:
“We are always recruiting; we are always trying to get better. As long as I am able to get a guy in – I do not know what the time lines are yet – but we are already actively looking for a couple of guys.”
On how he’ll attempt to reenergize the student fan base:
“There’s already been some things that I have kind of been talking about in regards to getting something going for football games. We have a great pathway from the parking lot all the way over there to McLane Stadium. Maybe we can swing by the baseball field to get something; I don’t know if it is food or whatever it is. I am a big fan about sports, I’ll be at football, basketball, I don’t even know all the sports you all have here yet, but I am going to be at them. I love watching athletes, I love watching athletes compete, doing what they do well, and in my opinion there is nothing better than watching an athlete do something really, really well because there are not a lot of people who can do that. I am a big fan and I want all of our guys to go to those athletic events as well – to create that buzz, to let them know we are behind other sports, and hopefully we can get those sports behind us as well. There were times at Pepperdine when I would stop practice because our soccer team was playing North Carolina. I would go, ‘hey, practice stops right now, because we are heading up to go and cheer for our ladies, then we’ll come back and finish practice.’ For me that is a big thing.”
On meeting some of the other Baylor coaches:
“I just met the basketball staff and there is a lack of energy in that office [laughs]. I was like, man, how do they do that, and then I saw all the coffee, and I was like, that’s it. I’ve just been blessed. I’ve receive lots of text messages and emails from the staff saying, ‘when you are ready, I look forward to meeting you and showing you around.’ For me that is such a warm and healthy feeling, because it is a bit scary to uproot your family from 16 years in Malibu to come 1,500 miles here. When you know you got that kind of base -- I’ve been invited to like 20 churches now, which is another big thing for us to find our church where we can nestle down – those have been amazing blessings for us.”
On choosing Baylor over Pepperdine:
“I always talk to my wife about certain places I would love to coach and there are maybe two other places I see myself coaching at. Baylor just happened to be one of them. I never wanted to leave Pepperdine in regards to going to find something better – it was an amazing place. I just really love the atmosphere here, the facilities, the knowledge that I know our athletic department is always looking to upgrade everything. Everybody always says we have to keep up with the Joneses. I kind of like being Mr. Jones, and that is a testament to Ian McCaw and the other administration here that we are trying to stay ahead of the curve instead of trying to follow the curve. If you haven’t met our strength and conditioning people – I walked out of there saying, ‘how can athletes not get better?’ We have a nutritionist, you name it, we’ve got it. From that standpoint, I say, ‘all I have to do is coach baseball and these guys have everything they want to get better.’”
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