Jim Schlossnagle recounts relationship with late Texas coach Augie Garrido

Texas‘ new coach head baseball coach, Jim Schlossnagle, is fairly familiar with the line of coaches that preceded him at his new gig. That includes the legendary Augie Garrido.

Along with being the last Texas coach to lead the Longhorns to a national championship, Garrido was held in high esteem by his peers. That included the then-TCU head coach Schlossnagle.

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“Augie, I can’t remember the year, ’15 or ’16, maybe,” Schlossnagle said at his introductory press conference on Wednesday. “We played in Fort Worth and the game ended and I had always wanted to be close to Augie and learn more about him but I didn’t play for him or work for him and he pulled me to the side during a rain delay and said ‘I want you to come see me this summer.’ And so, during recruiting season I was in California. I went, flew to Orange County Airport, Augie picked me up, we had a great dinner because he loved great food — and drink — and we had a long conversation about his future and what it was like to be the baseball coach at Texas.”

Schlossnagle continued, explaining that his admiration of Garrido didn’t necessarily equate to a lifelong desire to get the job at Texas.

“And I’ll never say that there’s any place that’s ever been my dream job,” Schlossnagle said. “I’ve loved every single place that I’ve ever been. As an assistant coach, to be real frank with you, my dream job was to be the coach at TCU because that was the program I felt like needed, or had the most space to grow. I’m from western Maryland, I never envisioned that I would get to be the coach at Texas A&M or the university of Texas. That was — I only ever saw those things on TV.” 

Now, though, Schlossnagle is the head coach for the Longhorns, with the keys to one of the premier programs in college baseball and a chance to put to use those conversations with Garrido.

Schlossnagle discussed the state of the Texas roster

Schlossnagle has achieved success at all of his stops throughout his head coaching career, and at his introductory press conference in Austin, he gave his reactions to his new roster that he’ll look to lead to similar success.

“We got to see the team, the past year’s roster, up close and personal in the Regional,” Schlossnagle said. “Obviously some really good players on the team, some really good young players on the team, and some guys that have some decisions to make in the draft. So our first order of business, once we get through lunch this afternoon, I will be in be contact with all those guys. Make sure they feel good about our staff, let them know that we want them here and we can build a great product around them.”

Texas and Texas A&M faced off once in the regular season and another time in the College Station Regional this past season. Both matchups that Schlossnagle was able to lead the Aggies to wins in. But as the Longhorns now transition to the SEC next season, Schlossnagle will now be responsible for generating wins in the same conference with a program entering uncharted waters.

“But I will tell you, many SEC coaches gave me some advice before I joined Texas A&M and the SEC and the piece of advice has rung very true,” Schlossnagle said. “There is a top 2% of player, like the major leagues, that is better than everybody else. That’d be your Paul Skenes, or at A&M we got lucky. We had Braden Montgomery and Jace LaViolette, Gavin Grahovac, guys that are just superior players. But for the most part, you really don’t have better players than the other team. You have to have as good of players as the other team.”