Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork recalls Jim Schlossnagle saying the right things at his first College Station news conference a year ago this month. More importantly to the Aggies’ baseball fortunes, Bjork recalls Schlossnagle doing the right things at the same time.
“Coach walked into the batting facility the first time, and things were kind of disorganized. Extension cords were hanging down; it was just kind of a mess,” Bjork remembered. “And he said, ‘This will be fixed by tomorrow.’ The next day he had a visual chart hung up in the batting cages explaining how to put things away.
“It said, ‘This is where the ball (buckets) go, this is where the extension cords go, this is how you put the nets up,’ and so forth. That was the next day. He has a high attention to detail.”
At that same time, and while the Aggies celebrated hiring away TCU’s celebrated coach, Schlossnagle was clammily reflecting on his first move in nearly two decades, replacing Rob Childress at A&M. The Maryland native won big in Fort Worth — unprecedentedly big at a program that wasn’t accustomed to baseball success and at a university that treated Schlossnagle, 51, like purple royalty.
“At this point last year, I was in the Texas A&M hotel and conference center waking up consistently at 3:30 in the morning in a full body sweat,” said Schlossnagle, whose first A&M team is preparing for the seventh College World Series in program history. “Because I had just left a place that was so comfortable for (A&M). I hadn’t hired a staff yet and didn’t know the players.
“And I knew we needed a lot of new players.”
To declare it has worked out for the Aggies one year into the Schlossnagle hire is akin to claiming A&M’s leading hitter, Jack Moss at .391, has a good eye at the plate. It’s much more than that.
“Schloss and his staff have done a great job of (getting) their kids to believe and play the game the right way,” said Dan McDonnell, whose Louisville squad lost both games of an NCAA Tournament super regional last weekend at A&M. “I’ve known Schloss for a long time, and I have a lot of respect for him. As much as it hurts for me, I’m happy for him because I know how hard he works at this.
“He pours his heart and soul into it.”
The early result is A&M (42-18) against Oklahoma (42-22) in the opening game of the CWS in Omaha, Neb., at 1 p.m. Friday. A&M could play old rival Texas in the second round Sunday.
The Aggies played in the CWS in 1999, 2011 and 2017 but were a combined 0-6 in the double-elimination portion of college baseball’s grandest event.
A&M, which has never won a national title, hasn’t won a CWS game since 1993, when Mark Johnson ran the program and Schlossnagle was a 22-year-old assistant at Clemson. There are a couple of signs, however, this might be the year the Aggies finally break through.
The last time they played in Omaha, they lost to McDonnell’s Cardinals and Schlossnagle’s Horned Frogs to quickly head back south. The two teams A&M eliminated in a regional and super regional this season? TCU and Louisville.
A&M fans had a hate/love relationship with Schlossnagle before his arrival in College Station: They hated that his TCU teams eliminated the Aggies from the NCAA Tournament in 2012 and, incredibly, from 2015 to 2017, and they would have loved for him to be running the show at A&M. Their dream came true — and Schlossnagle said he’s now living his own dream at a place bananas for baseball.
“It’s been everything I could have ever dreamed of when making the move,” Schlossnagle said. “I’ve said very publicly how much I love TCU, but this was an awesome life change for me, both personally and professionally, and I can’t thank our players enough for making the baseball side of things come true. To be sitting here going to the College World Series — I know this sounds ‘coachy,’ but every single ounce of credit goes to the players.
“All I asked them to do was be selfless, work their rear ends off, and just believe. Of course, playing good baseball is part of it.”
The Aggies had a little trouble with that last part early on, dropping two of three games against Penn of the Ivy League in the second home series of the season in what was shaping up as a long first year. Bjork said he called Schlossnagle the next Monday.
“I told him, ‘Coach, it’s a process. No one expects anything to really happen this year. Get the culture and the process right, keep recruiting at a high level and coach these guys up, and that’s all you can do,’” Bjork recalled. “He said he appreciated that. They got off to a rough start, but they never panicked.”
A&M, with Schlossnagle’s proven process fully engaged by March, won its last seven SEC series and won the West Division for the first time in program history, entering the NCAA Tournament as the No. 5 seed.
TCU had never made a CWS before Schlossnagle’s arrival in 2004 but made five during his tenure, but he believes he still has plenty to prove at the top level. For all their success, the Horned Frogs never made a CWS championship series.
“Coach John Robinson, the Hall of Fame football coach, told me one time, ‘You need to slow down,’ when I was at UNLV, and we had a great season,” Schlossnagle said. “But I don’t want to slow down. I want to win a national title. And sooner rather than later.”
brent.zwerneman@chron.com
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