Editor’s Note: For the next week, The Daily Texan will highlight the best coaches on the 40 Acres and debate who reigns supreme atop the Texas coaching conglomerate.
Imagine Yoda coaching college baseball, but without the green skin and at least 4 feet taller.
He would watch from the dugout, waiting for the perfect opportunity to share his endless wisdom. Wisdom sometimes related to baseball. Equal parts philosopher and tactician, Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido is the Yoda of college baseball, constantly stressing the spiritual aspect of a game better known for superstitions.
And he can’t quite put a finger on where his unique coaching style came from. He has continually grown in his 41 years of coaching college baseball. He doesn’t have one great influence guiding him; instead, he remembers a pearl of wisdom from his mother that helped shaped his coaching style.
“She told me, ‘There is a mighty fine line between philosophy and bullshit,’” Garrido recalled sitting next to this reporter on an oversized brown-leather sofa in an Omaha conference room. He had gladly been talking with reporters for 30 minutes about life, baseball, reality television. “The trick is I believe it. I believe in what I am saying, in the spirituality of baseball.”
Stressing the philosophical aspects to his players, Garrido mentally prepares his teams to do their best. When they get put in tough situations, they are prepared. Not that he doesn’t know baseball, because few know baseball as well as Garrido. He knows everything there is to know about baseball, has seen it all and has it all categorized into tidy files inside his head.
“He’s been in just about every situation,” Texas catcher Cameron Rupp said before the championship series. “He told me the other night when I was standing on-deck that he remembered being in exactly the same situation in 1998. It was, ‘This happened and that happened, so we’re going to do this.’ And it worked. He’s been here so many times, and he doesn’t panic. I think that helps us.”
Part immense baseball knowledge, part philosophy, Garrido has combined his unique recipe to cook up more than 1,700 wins — a mark he passed late this season.
There is no doubt that Garrido is the best coach at Texas, because he is the best (and all-time winningest) coach in all of college baseball. He is the godfather of the sport: His small-ball approach changed the way college baseball was played and still is played today.
Yet, he may be the most approachable, accessible and open college coach in any sport.
Garrido is a combination of Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden, John Wooden and Dean Smith, with the wit of Johnny Carson. He leads without fear, he coaches with passion, he can always lighten a situation — important in a sport as nerve-racking as baseball.
“There are worse sports than baseball,” Garrido said. “Sports like gun-fighting and gladiator sports, those are sports where you can only lose once. Those are sports I wouldn’t want to play.”
And while football may be the main event in Texas, Garrido has re-established the Longhorns among baseball’s royalty, firmly entrenching the University’s northernmost campus: The University of Texas at Omaha.
And it is in Omaha, on the biggest stage in his sport — the College World Series — where his magic shines.
Down six runs after three innings to the ace from the nation’s best pitching staff, a pitcher who had only lost one game all season, Garrido gathered his team for a rare mid-game talk.
He proceeded to compare them to the Bad News Bears, reminding them that they were, in fact, the Texas Longhorns, and they don’t play hapless baseball.
Never angry, never yelling, Garrido continued with his passionate speech, instilling a deep belief into his team.
“Imagine how good it is going to feel when you come back from this,” Garrido told them.
They did come back. They scored six runs and chased the nearly untouchable Mike Leake from the game — all in the fourth inning. They added four more unanswered runs as they cruised past Arizona State in a crucial CWS win.
Garrido is college baseball. It is his life. While he is 70 years old, he isn’t close to calling it quits now.
“For me, this is a lifestyle; it’s not a job,” Garrido said. “As long as I’m healthy and feel the way I do about the players and continue to be effective, then this is what I want to do.”
He has won five national championships, two of which came during his current stint as Texas’ skipper; the other three he captured at Cal State Fullerton. But he wants more.
Last week, he came within one game of winning his sixth title, the Longhorns’ seventh.
Not bad for players with zero Omaha experience.
At Fullerton, Garrido matched USC’s Rod Dedeaux as the only coach to win a title in three consecutive decades, notching championships in 1979, 1984 and 1995. He added two more at Texas, in 2002 and 2005, becoming the first coach to ever guide his team to a national championship in four consecutive decades.
If Texas can win a title in Omaha next year, in the final year the historic championship is played at Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium, it would be the perfect ending to an era, giving Garrido a title in five separate decades. Rosenblatt — the house that Dedeaux built, would be the house that Garrido closed.
Garrido has captured at least one title in his 40s, 50s and 60s, and was one game away from a title in his 70s.
Paul Mainieri, the LSU coach who led the Tigers past Texas last week, was all smiles when he heard that he would be facing Texas and thus Augie Garrido. It was his dream championship match-up.
“If you’re a hitter, you want to face the best pitcher in the country,” Mainieri articulated. “If you’re a pitcher, you want to get the All-American hitter out. What do I get to do? I look across at the other dugout and see Augie Garrido. I say, ‘Wow, this is the big time.’ We’re going to match wits, Augie and I, for the national championship. Are you kidding me?”
Mainieri came out on top last week, yet there is no doubt that the LSU coach is still looking up to Garrido. He always will.
Dedeaux, who attended the College World Series every year since he retired in 1984 and died in 2006, joked in 2005 — the last year Garrido won a title — that he wishes Garrido would think about joining him in the stands so he doesn’t threaten his record.
“He’s a personal friend, a very good friend, and I have great respect for him,” Dedeaux said. “But when he gets this close, I’m going to have to figure out a way to tie his shoelaces together and help him fall down. I don’t want him to quite catch it.”
Dedeaux went on an insane run, leading USC to five straight championships from 1970-74. It would be near impossible today for anyone to duplicate that run.
That doesn’t mean that Garrido isn’t trying.
“I love what’s happening here,” Dedeaux said about Texas’ recent success. “What Texas is doing now is like what we did. People are starting to say that maybe we want to see them get beat. He’s going through that and handling it well.”
4 th' HORDE!!!