Jim Schlossnagle Welcome Celebration
Jun 10, 2021 | Baseball
Jim Schlossnagle was officially introduced in Aggieland as Texas A&M's head baseball coach on Thursday. Athletics Director Ross Bjork announced the hire earlier in the week.
You can watch the introduction or read the transcript below.
Athletics Director Ross Bjork
It’s a great day to be a Fightin’ Texas Aggie. Before we get started about today's festivities, since this is really kind of our first gathering of this kind, I just wanted to say thank you for everything that has taken place this past year. It's been unprecedented. Tomorrow marks 66 weeks since we shut down college sports. And then on June 8th of 2020, we started working out. And that took a lot of effort just to get to the point where we can have our student-athletes back on campus. So to think how far we've come is a credit to the leadership, the health experts, our fans, the 12th Man, to get us to this point. So I did want to acknowledge how far we've come and just thank everyone for all their support. And we're not done yet.
This is an exciting day for Texas A&M Athletics, and of course our baseball program. It's also historic. So how about this…we've only announced three other baseball coaches since 1959. And I would say this is a home run announcement. Coach Schlossnagle is only the fourth coach since 1959. A little trivia: before 1959, we had 17 coaches, including coach ‘Unknown’ in 1894. He had a 3-1 record. But think about that. Tom Chandler, Mark Johnson, who's here today, and then of course Coach Childress. We want to thank him for his service. And now we have Jim Schlossnagle.
I want to thank the university administration, President Kathy Banks, she's our new president. She has literally hit the ground running. She's actually having an event with Aggie Moms right now, which is very, very important here at Texas A&M. So she could not be here today, but we want to thank her for her support during this search. And then we know we have some university administrators and leadership. So we thank you for being here. Chancellor Sharp is here today as well. We know he cares deeply about athletics and wants it to be the front porch and done the right way. But also just a side note, about a year ago, Chancellor Sharp was the first person in higher education that said we can, we should, and we will play college sports. That was at the end of April of 2020 when there was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear. So we want to thank you for that foresight that you had to get us through this past year.
And then we have the Board of Regents, we want to congratulate our new chairman, Tim Leach who could not be here today, but we have several board members. Jay Graham and his wife April are here. Thank you. We have regent Mike Plank here as well. And then we have our newest regent, Randy Brooks. So thank you all for being here. And then we have regent emeritus Phil Adams. I saw him somewhere. But thank you all for being here and thank you for your leadership. We also have lots of head coaches that are here today. Mayor Andrew Nelson from the City of Bryan, he's here as well, in his jersey.
During our search we formed an advisory team, folks that help me research, interview candidates, go out and find the best coach. Kevin Hurley's our senior associate athletic director, oversees our baseball team and program. Kevin's here on the side over there, Joe Fields is our senior associate for student-athlete services. He's with our track team, Joe is part of our group. And then Justin Moore our deputy athletic director. Justin, standing off over to the side as well. We also employed a turnkey search firm, do a lot of background checks and really research the field.
Texas A&M Baseball. The corner of George Bush Drive and Olsen Boulevard. Blue Bell Park. Olsen Magic. Holding up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 fingers when you hear that train horn honking on the train tracks. Bubbles when we score. Ball five, ball six, ball seven. The rifleman when we make a strikeout. Kids roaming the berms, the playground. Singing Deep in the Heart of Texas and God Bless America. Some pretty famous heckling. Section 203.
Those are the things that define Texas A&M Baseball. But here is what also should define Texas A&M Baseball. Competing in the SEC at the highest level. Recruiting the best and brightest in Texas but also beyond. Being in the hunt to host regionals, super regionals, going to Omaha and of course winning a national championship. That is our vision. And so pursuing the right coach who could deliver on that vision was the goal of this search. Someone who is a leader, not just a coach but a leader, who could create a vision and build on this platform of success and capitalize on the recruiting bed that is Texas and achieve the dreams and aspirations that we all have for this program. But also live by the Aggie core values: respect, excellence, leadership, loyalty, integrity and selfless service. And it really came down to one leader, one man. Jim Schlossnagle. Winningest coach in the state of Texas in the last 10 years. He's won 54 postseason games. 15 NCAA Tournaments. Conference or national coach of the year 10 times. He's won 811 games as a head coach. 20 conference titles. Been to Omaha five times. He's won 11 games there, tied for the most of any active head coach.
When we sat down with Coach Schlossnagle and met for the first time, we could see that his drive, his passion, his commitment to high-level baseball, but also doing it the right way was exactly what we wanted. The three-hour meeting felt like 30 minutes. It was really one of the best interviews that I've been a part of. There's a connection here and we believe that his leadership and commitment to young men on and off the field will carry us forward. So we want to give a big Aggieland and Texas A&M welcome to Kati, who's here in the front row, to Jackson, and to your new baseball coach, Jim Schlossnagle.
Jim Schlossnagle
Thank you very much. Wow. Howdy. Yeah, what an awesome day. And I've certainly been on the other side plenty of times of Section 203 and bubbles and Ball 47. It was only ball six, but it felt like 50. Just incredibly honored and humbled to be in this position. One of my theories in baseball is baseball is not a game you talk about, it's a game you do, it's a game you practice, it's a game you play. I'm not going to be very long up here, but I certainly want to…we've already introduced my son Jackson, my daughter Kati. I want to make sure that they know how much I care about them. I'm moving away from Fort Worth and their students at TCU, but just to make it public, they were 100 percent behind me taking this opportunity. I want to thank Ross (Bjork), President Banks, Chancellor Sharp, all the Board of Regents, for having the confidence in me and the staff that we’ll put together to lead this baseball program. I also want to acknowledge Coach Childress and his staff, Coach Johnson, who's been a longtime friend of mine, just an incredible man that I think super highly of. And then of course Coach Chandler, that have laid the foundation for what is already an outstanding baseball program and one that it's my job along with our staff and players to build upon.
I would have to also thank TCU. TCU is very…it means a lot to me. The Chancellor, Victor Boschini, and the athletic director there, Jeremiah Donati. Those guys couldn't have been more supportive. And all the four athletic directors at TCU, they couldn't have been more supportive of what my time there, both not just professionally but with my family, with my Children. And my move to Aggieland should have zero negative reflection upon TCU. Two very different schools that are committed to baseball at the highest level. The goal was to see them in Omaha. And, when that's ultimately the goal, as much as I love it, we want to beat the Horned Frogs. And then lastly, I want to thank my players at TCU because, you know, we can talk about staff, we can talk about support staff, we can talk about fans, we can talk about community, talk about all those things. But it's all about the players. There's nothing more important than the players and the former players, which I'll address here shortly. But I want to thank the players at TCU. One of my coaching philosophies is that when the team goals get met, the individual goals get met. And my opportunity to stand here as your coach is simply reflective of some outstanding players that I've been able to coach at TCU, UNLV before that, Tulane and Clemson before that.
So I'd like to just briefly address a couple of different groups. Number one, as I said earlier, the program belongs to the players. This is not my baseball program. It's my job to oversee the program, to continue to move it forward. But the program belongs to the players, and the program belongs to the former players. And so any former players out there in the community or when they come to visit, our ballpark is always open to them. The program is always open to them. I want to get to know them. I want them to get to know me because there's a lot of people I'm accountable to, but the players and the former players are super important to me. My job with the players is to give them the best chance to have success. That's simply to me what a leader is. You put people in the best position to have success. You help them to become the very best version of themselves. And when we all do that, then the results on the baseball field will take care of itself.
To the future Texas A&M players…get ready. We're coming. We're coming to find you. We’re coming to identify you. We’re coming to recruit you. We want to teach you about this place. We want you to see what an amazing place that it is. There are no negatives here. There are things that that can be better. But there are no negatives. I like to tell a recruit that this is not just your future, this is my future too. And the same things that you evaluate are the exact same things that I evaluated as I was making this decision. And I believe that players make decisions based primarily based in three areas: academics, player development and team success, right? We already know what a great university this is. We have the tools or will have the tools along with the coaching staff to continue to develop players to become the very best version of themselves on and off the field. Baseball players want to play in the major leagues and we want to help them get there. But we want to do that through the team concept of being a player at Texas A&M. And then lastly, after academics and player development, it's team success. I want to win championships. Not play for championships, not win a game in Omaha, we want to play for and win a national title. And that's the bottom line. Recruits out there, you can achieve all of that here. I am heavily involved in recruiting. Most people would call me a boring guy. I appreciate how pretty a golf course is, but I don't play golf. I don't have very many hobbies. I believe my job is a lifestyle. It's not a profession. And so we’ll certainly always work within the confines of the NCAA rules, but I will be out as much as I'm allowed to be out along with our staff and I will be heavily involved in that. Because you can't do it without great players.
And then to Aggie Nation and Aggieland and our great fans, you have my full-on commitment that there will never be a minute or an hour or a day where I'm not doing something to better this baseball program and make it a product that you want to see and be a part of. I've had to stand in the opposing dugout at Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park in playoffs and regionals and super regionals and I know what that's like. And so my job is to put a product on the field that everybody wants to come see, not just because you're a fan, but because you want to see great baseball and competitive baseball and big games and big weekends. And we're going to work like crazy every day to do that. I think an Aggie baseball game should be the thing to do in the spring, from February when it's a little chilly to June right before Omaha when we're sweating to death out there like it is today, and on to a Super Regional weekend trying to make our way to the College World Series.
And then lastly, the goal is a national title. That's it. There will never be a day where the goal is anything less than that. We have standards. Standards are behavior-based and we know what those are. Goals are performance-based and we'll do everything we can to control that and to get to and win at the College World Series. Know that I am a very impatient guy. Winning never feels as good as losing feels bad to me. I can't stand to lose. I understand that it's going to happen, but every year, if we're allowed to play 56 I expect to go 56-0. I get that it’s probably not gonna go that way, but that is what I'm about and that's what you can hold me accountable to. But we are going to do it the right way. We are going to do it the right way. There are no shortcuts to anything great and anything worth having takes a lot of work and it doesn't happen overnight. But understand that as soon as it can possibly happen, it will. I'm super excited. I look forward to meeting as many people as I possibly can and for you to get to know my family. I'll be in and out all summer long, working like crazy to get us to where we need to be. But thank you for this opportunity. I am super excited. Gig ‘Em.
