UC-Irvine announces 2008 schedule and new pitching coach

The UC-Irvine Anteaters and new head coach Mike Gillespie have announced the 2008 schedule. The team will open the season on February 22nd when they head to Nevada to take on the Wolfpack in a three game series. The Anteaters will open the home slate on February 29th when the University of San Francisco heads down the coast. The following weekend they will fly across the country to New Orleans to take on the Tulane Green Wave from March 7th-9th. They will also host Hawaii and take part in the Arizona State tournament before opening up the conference season. The full schedule is available here.

Mike Gillespie has also announced that Ted Silva has been named the new pitching coach for the Anteaters. He spent the 2007 season with the Fresno State program where he developed the team to the second lowest ERA in the conference. Before taking the job with Fresno State, He spent the 2005-2006 season with the Cal-State Fullerton program where he led the team to a nation best ERA. The full release is available here.

Rivals Mailbag

Kendall Rogers of Rivals has posted his latest mailbag where he discusses issues and questions about college baseball. This week he fields a question about the Arizona Wildcats, how UC-Irvine dragged their feet in the coaching search, checks in on some of the mid-majors around the nation, and has a nice response about why ESPN does not cover more college baseball. The full article is available here.

Gillespie to UCI

Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com has confirmed what the College Baseball Blog passed along yesterday, that former Southern Cal coach Mike Gillespie has been hired to take on the UC-Irvine job.

The report breaks the news that Cal State Los Angeles coach Pat Shine will serve as an assistant to Gillespie and run the program. You can read Kendall Roger's article here.

Mike Gillespie New Coach at UC-Irvine??

According to sources Coach Gillespie has decided to get back into coaching after 15 months lay off. It has not been made official yet but UC-Irvine will announce the new coach of the Anteaters as Mike Gillespie real soon. Coach Gillespie comes to UC-Irvine after spending 20 years at USC and winning a National Championship back in 1998. This sets up a family rivalry with USC as his son-in-law Chad Kreuter took over the Trojans job in 2007.

More Details to come soon.

Fullerton and UC-Irvine News

The Daily Pilot wrote an article this weekend on Dave Serrano leaving UC-Irvine for Fullerton. The article discusses some of the reasons Serrano left Irvine for Fullerton which is led by the fact that the Irvine athletic department is currently operating without an athletic director. Serrano also states that Cal-State Fullerton athletic director Brian Quinn spoke with him in 2004 when Serrano left for Irvine and told him that he would be the next coach at Fullerton if Horton ever left. Quinn also reiterated this at Rosenblatt Stadium when the Anteaters were making their magical run. The article also discusses that former Tennessee coach Rod Delmonico has already been in contact with Serrano about taking over the Irvine job. The full article is available here.

More on Serrano going to Fullerton!!

As Brian reported earlier Dave Serrano has agreed to terms with Fullerton. Dave has signed a 4 year contract to be the new coach at Fullerton. Dave will bring over Sergio Brown from Irvine as an assistant.

For more on the story follow the link.

OCRegister.com


With Dave going to Fullerton where will Irvine start looking. Dave did not leave the cupboard empty with a team expected to compete for a conference and national championship in 2008.

Serrano said it remained up in the air who his assistants would be, but that his first obligation is to his two assistants at UC Irvine, Sergio Brown and Greg Bergeron. He said he was informed that Irvine is going to conduct a national coaching search, but he hopes Brown or Bergeron is a candidate for the job. If both assistants decide they want to follow Serrano to Fullerton, and Vanderhook decides he wants to remain as well, Serrano will have to choose between the three coaches for two spots.

Serrano also confirmed that uncertainty surrounding UC Irvine’s commitment to athletics played a significant role in his decision to leave. UC Irvine’s previous athletics director, Bob Chichester, cited budget cuts and a lack of commitment to athletics by Chancellor Michael V. Drake as reasons for resigning in August. UCI is in the midst of a search for Chichester’s replacement, but no hire is expected for at least another month, according to Serrano.

Baseball America

BREAKING NEWS: Serrano to Fullerton

Baseball America is reporting that Dave Serrano will accept the head coaching position with Cal-State Fullerton after saying last week that he was going to stay at UC-Irvine. The article from Baseball America is available here. The College Baseball Blog will have more information as it becomes available.

Baseball America checks in with George Horton

Aaron Fitt of Baseball America recently had a chance to sit down with George Horton to discuss his move to Oregon. A major change in the Oregon situation is that Horton will have the full 11.7 scholarships in his first season and the school is looking to build about a 10-15 million dollar baseball stadium. Horton also believes that Rick Vanderhook should be named the next head coach at Fullerton. The full article is available here.

Horton completes staff

George Horton the new head coach of Oregon has completed his coaching staff with the hiring of Andrew Checketts from UC-Riverside and Jason Gill from Cal-State Fullerton. Checketts led the Riverside pitching staff to a nation best ERA of 3.68. Checketts will be making $120,000/year with a one time stipend of $25,000. Gill comes over from Fullerton where he helped Horton to the NCAA Title in 2004. The full release from Oregon is available here.

Holy Cross names Mike Reed as Assistant Coach

FROM PRESS RELEASE
WORCESTER, Mass. – The College of the Holy Cross has named Mike Reed as an assistant baseball coach, as announced by head coach Greg DiCenzo and Athletic Director Richard M. Regan, Jr.

A 1994 graduate of Salem State, Reed’s years of experience ranges from his recent assistant coaching position at Milford High to beginning his career with the Milford Legion baseball club. Other highlights of Reed’s career include his role as head coach at Clark University from 1995-1999, in which the team improved from three wins in 1995 to a school record 15 wins in 1999. Under his coaching, the team was also a two-time Constitution Athletic Conference Semi-finalist (1998-99).

After Clark, Reed took on an assistant coaching position at Babson College. During his time as assistant coach, he scouted over 200 games, contacted over 800 prospective student-athletes, and generated over 100 applications during this two year span. In 2001, Reed was named head coach at Babson.

Aside from his extensive and successful coaching career, Reed was a section sergeant of the 101st Airborne Division from 2002-2006 in the United States Army in Fort Campbell, KY.

Steve Bray named head coach of Concordia-Irvine

Steve Bray has been named the new head coach of the Concordia-Irvine baseball program for the 2007-2008 season. Bray has spent the last three seasons as the pitching coach for the Eagles. He brings a strong background including pitching with San Mateo for two seasons before transferring to South Carolina for his junior season. His appointment should give the Eagles a presence in California since he is from the area originally. Thanks to the members of The UBC Thunderbird Baseball Fan Page for the information.

Oregon strikes gold

The University of Oregon introduced George Horton as its new baseball coach on Saturday, having reached agreement with the two-time national coach of the year who led Cal State-Fullerton to six trips to the College World Series in 11 seasons, including the national championship in 2004.

"The gold standard," director of athletics Pat Kilkenny said of Horton, who has a career record of 490-212-1.

"The bottom line is that the University of Oregon has immediate credibility as a baseball program. President (Dave) Frohnmayer said if you do it, be the best you can be and get the best you can get, and there's no doubt we did get the No. 1 coach in America."

The details of the agreement: A five-year contract that runs through June 30, 2012, subject to state approval, at $400,000 per year - a base salary of $150,000 per year and an additional $250,000 per year in guaranteed income derived in part from Oregon's contracts with the Oregon Sports Network and Nike.

RegisterGuard.com

Oregon.Scout.com

What about Tim Wallach??

Tim has been mention as a possible replacement to Horton at CSF. Whatever happens this really will shake up the landscape of College Baseball.

For the full article follow the link.

OCREGISTER

Update on the Coaching changes

UC Irvine head baseball coach Dave Serrano has been quick to dispel any speculation that he would be interested in the Cal State Fullerton head position with the Titans' George Horton accepting the Oregon job. Serrano was Fullerton's pitching coach for eight years prior to accepting the UCI head-coaching position in 2004.

"I have no interest in leaving UC Irvine for Cal State Fullerton," Serrano said. "I feel that we have something special building at UCI with the program moving in the right direction. Fullerton is a great program and I have many enjoyable memories from there but my family and I are very happy in Irvine."

Watch for Ted Silva pitching coach for Fresno State and Bryant Ward hitting coach from South Florida. This two guys could very well end up on a new staff here in the next week or so.

Ted Silva Played for CSF in the early 90's and the was drafted by the Rangers and was in their organization for 5 years. Prior to being the pitching coach at Fresno State Ted over saw the pitching staff at CSF '04-'05 as a volunteer assistant. Bryant Ward played and graduated from East Carolina before going to CSF to be an volunteer assistant.

CSTV Story

UC-IRVINE Release

Domino Affect among the Coaching Ranks?

Following up the article by Brian posted earlier today about Horton going to Oregon, Who does coach Horton take to Oregon to fill out his staff? Does he take Gill from CSF? Then does he go get a coach that he has work with in the past? Maybe a Ted Silva or a Bryant Ward? With all this shaking out Rick Vanderhook could very well end up the Head Coach at CSF. You could see Vanderhook and Horton trying to get the same guys to work for them. Stay Tuned as the staff of the College Baseball Blog will bring y'all the breaking news as it happens.

Oregon set to hire Horton

According to a report on Rivals.com, George Horton of Cal-State Fullerton will become the new head coach of the Oregon Ducks which restarts their program in the 2008-2009 season. Horton has led Cal-State Fullerton to a 452-117-1 record in his eleven seasons with the Titans. His most successful season was in 2004 when he won the national championship. This move by Horton shows how important it was to the Oregon athletic department to get a huge name in the College Baseball world. Oregon failed to get Tim Corbin from Vanderbilt and Dave Serrano from UC-Irvine. They also had some flirtations with Pat Casey but never officially interviewed him. The full article from Rivals.com is available here and The College Baseball Blog will be all over this story in the coming days.

Trouble brewing in Gainesville?

It is in the media. New scholarship and roster-size limits will likely lead to some uncomfortable situations this fall, particularly with respect to the new transfer restrictions. That said, new Florida coach Kevin O'Sullivan seems to be spitting mad about a one-sided article in the Gainesville Sun that paints him in less than positive light.

The article involves allegations regarding a meeting with a local high school coach, who's son is on the Gators squad. The high school coach alleges that O'Sullivan took away the scholarship of his son, Bo Smith, at the 11th hour before classes and that O'Sullivan has only a passing familiarity with his own roster.

The Florida Athletics department hit back this morning, citing massive inaccuracies in the article and defending Coach O'Sullivan. The real story is likely somewhere in the middle, as always, but look for roster issues to come up at numerous schools this fall, particularly those with large recruiting classes and with new coaches. One thing is for certain, though: this was not how O'Sullivan wanted to start out with the local media.

Read the Gainesville Sun article here.

Read the UF Press Release response here.

Oregon baseball thoughts

The University of Oregon announced on July 13th that they were bringing back baseball to the Eugene school after a 26 year absence. The school ended up dropping the wrestling program and adding competitive cheerleading to the athletic program. The reason that was quoted by the Oregon athletic department to add baseball was that the sport is seeing increased growth across the country.

I believe that this is true in the suburbs but Baseball has seen a major decrease in urban areas. The main reason is the increasing cost in competing on select teams which in some communities start before the age of 12 when a kid in the city of Miami can go play a game of basketball for weeks on end at the playground for 20 bucks with a decent basketball. I would like my readers to drive by a baseball field this weekend and see how many kids are playing on their local Little League field. Also, look at the Little League World Series and see how many African-American kids participated in the final eight. There was a report on Say Hey which is one of the top sports blogs on the internet that only two out of the eight US teams had any African American kids. (Click here for article). The other experiment is to look at a MLB baseball game and see how many players are minorities from United States. You will be surprised with how low it actually is.

The other problem I see with Oregon adding baseball is that the wrestlers at the school now will have to transfer to continue their athletic careers and possibly make the Olympic team. Baseball has been removed from the Olympics starting in 2012 due to the lack of interest in the sport around the world. We did see a very well attended World Port Tournament in Holland this summer with over 3,000 people attending some of Team USA games but we also saw the debacle which was the Pan-American games. During that tournament, we saw multiple delays with the field due to poor drainage and even had the tournament readjusted a day before it started due to insufficient lighting.

The final problem I have with Oregon is that they couldn't support baseball 26 years ago. What has changed in Eugene to say they can support a Pac-10 team? They currently have no stadium and need to build a brand new facility.

I also think that the Oregon Athletic Department is aiming way too high with the help of Phil Knight for a new head coach. The Oregon Athletic Department has already interviewed Tim Corbin and planned on bringing in Dave Serrano before he backed out. There was some reports on the Internet that Phil Knight had earmarked so much money that whoever took the job would be one of the top five coaches in the nation in terms of salary. Why has Oregon not looked at some of the top assistants on the West Coast instead of a current head coach? How many top head coaches are going to leave a successful place to restart a program which will not have the full usage of scholarships until 2011-2012 season?

I just felt like sharing my thoughts on the situation in Eugene and hope that the Oregon program will be a success but they need to overcome the obstacles I have outlined above.

Update on Dave Serrano!

Dave Serrano said Wednesday he has withdrawn as a candidate for the Oregon job, choosing to stay at UC Irvine and continue to build the Anteaters into a perennial national contender.

In his third season at Irvine, Serrano took the Anteaters to the College World Series and garnered National Coach of the Year honors. Along with the recognition came interest from Oregon, which is looking to resurrect its baseball program after 26 years.

"I want to thank the University of Oregon for their interest," Serrano said. "And I apologize to both universities for any distraction this has caused.

"I am excited to move on and continue to be the coach of the players who are in our program now."

Serrano said the decision, reached after long discussions with his wife, came down to family. He said the time and effort to start up a new program would cost him too much time away from his wife, Tracy, and his three young sons.

Orange County Register

UC Irvine coach Dave Serrano has taken his name out of the running for Oregon’s vacant head coaching job.

Baseball America’s 2007 Coach of the Year had delayed his scheduled visit to Eugene so he and his wife and staff could make a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate and relive the Anteaters’ College World Series run, and the Ducks allowed him a few more days to think about it before his visit, which he never wound up making. Serrano said he woke up this morning with a decision to remain at Irvine.

“As intriguing and as challenging as the Oregon job would have been–and we would have been up to the task–I hope this shows my commitment to UC Irvine and our team,” Serrano said. “We still have lofty goals here at Irvine. I think this is a good program that can continue to grow and grow as long as I can keep my coaching staff intact, and we can take it to the highest level."

Baseball America

Dave Serrano postpones interview

Dave Serrano, the leading candidate to become the coach of Oregon's reborn baseball program, will delay his visit to Eugene to interview for the Head Coach job due to scheduling issues with Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny. Kilkenny is currently dealing with the announcement of a $100 million dollar donation from Phil Knight of Nike and Coach Serrano is scheduled for a family vacation the rest of the week which has rescheduled his interview until August 27th according to The Register-Guard.

Serrano postpones interview
Knight donates $100 million to Oregon