After taking TCU to the first College World Series in program history in June, head coach Jim Schlossnagle has the task of getting them back there.
Schlossnagle recently took some time out of his schedule to talk about the Horned Frogs' experience in Omaha as well as his preparation for the upcoming 2010-2011 campaign.
Q: You are a couple of months removed from taking your team to the College World Series for the first time in your program's history. With some time to reflect on it how would you describe that experience?
A: Certainly it was nothing short of amazing. With the exception of winning one more game to get to the Championship Series and then winning the whole thing. I was really proud of the way our team performed, but more importantly just the entire experience for our fans, players, and parents. Everything was phenomenal. The way we were kind of taken under the wing of the city of Omaha was very unexpected, and it was an amazing 10 or 11 days...however long we were there.
Q: Your team is back on campus now and you have talked to them. How was your first message to them different this year and how did it compare to what you had to say to them last year?
A: Certainly it was different, because it's a lot different talking about something you have done and maybe felt like we have broke through a little bit of a glass ceiling there to get to Omaha for the first time. But, the message this year was 'All that stuff's over with. It's been a great summer of everybody patting you on the back, and we're still gonna have that throughout the course of the fall and you're still living that honeymoon period until you play your first game.' Which is fine for the kids. They've earned that, they deserve it. There's no question that I don't want that to end for them on the outside. But within the walls of our locker room and our stadium and where we're going to work everyday, that's over with. Certainly we definitely left room for more achievement to try and win the whole thing. We feel like at least on paper right now there's some ability there to where maybe we can do that, but you're kind of back at ground zero. You have to put the work in to earn the right to get back there.
Q: How about for you as a head coach after reaching that destination. How is the challenge now different for you to to try to get back and go even farther?
A: Well certainly it raises expectation. I think within the confines of our program our expectation has always been to win a national championship, but when you're at a place that has never been to the World Series everything we've done in the seven years here has been a little bit better than the year before and fans and everybody gets excited about it. Well, when you get to Omaha everybody goes up there and sees what a great time it is from your president to your athletic director and then fans on the outside. They had such a great time and they want to do it again. It's not that easy, as we all know. The line between even just making a regional and not making a regional is so very thin now days, because so many great programs and universities are more and more being committed to college baseball. It's really hard to even get in the final 64, let alone the final two or final eight. So, those are things that we're gonna have to deal with, but within the walls of our program we've always had the goal of being a national champion and so we're just gonna keep working towards that.
Q: Matt Curry hit the 8th inning grand slam to propel you to your elimination game win over Florida State in Omaha. Has a stadium ever been louder or more electric in your career than Rosenblatt Stadium was at that moment?
A: Not that I remember. I've had people tell me that in 30, 40 or 50 years, whatever it was in Omaha, they've never seen Rosenblatt Stadium like that in terms of noise and energy, both before that pitch was thrown and then certainly after. It's really unique for us to have been a part of that in the history of Rosenblatt Stadium in its last year. For a team that, in a perfect world would have been for us to win it (the national championship), but even to go through that game....that's a game and that's a moment I think that if they were to do a history of the College World Series...it's gonna be a very small part, but I think it would be a part.
Q: Your team was featured on a TV show last year on the Mountain West Network. What was that experience like having TV crews and cameras following you around?
It was great, and certainly the title of the show was "Destination Omaha", so it was great that we were able to bring it to fruition. It was fun. They weren't that intrusive and we had a big part and a big say in when they were going to be around and when they weren't and what they were going to use. Since our own conference's network they wanted it to be very positive and basically just an insight into our baseball program. So, I thought it was really good. I thought it allowed people to learn the personalities of a lot of the kids on our team and the coaches as well...and really see how much work goes into putting a club together and also the ups and downs. Everything was on there. There were a lot of ups when you win 54 games, but there were also some downs. You know it caught us losing some games to the Air Force Academy just a couple weeks before the post season began. That's what happens in the game of baseball. You're going to have some lulls and some down times, but it's all about how you react to them, so that show was able to document all that, which is really neat.
Q: Would you do it again?
A: Oh sure, especially if we were able to be at the ultimate destination. I felt like the Mountain Network has been a great thing for our league, and we can legitimately say since it's available on DirecTv...if you have that channel on DirecTv...between the 15 or 20 games that we were able to broadcast and produce here and then put on the Mountain...I can promise you there were some teams in our league that got sick and tired of turning that thing on and all you saw was TCU, so it was great exposure for us.
Q: What's the biggest thing you need to accomplish this fall?
A: On the field we need to figure out who's going to be our starting catcher. Replacing Bryan Holaday is a challenge and we have two really good candidates for that. We have three senior pitchers we lost off of last year's team that played big roles for us, so we have to fill those spots. Basically we just have to get back to what I told the team and that's one thing we say in our program that we wanna have a white collar appearance, but a blue collar approach. So, from the outside looking in TCU is a great place, which it is. We have a great ballpark, good coaches and all that stuff, but on the inside we're blue collar. We just gotta kind of bring everybody back to earth and get back to work and start developing that team concept that really was a separator for us last year. You only do that by getting in the weight room at 7:00 a.m. and starting fall practice and getting all those things going. So, just the normal routine that every college program is going through right now.
CLICK HERE to listen to an audio podcast of this interview, which includes more with Jim Schlossnagle.
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