How the Alignment of Texas Brass and Augie Garrido led to Jim Schlossnagle's hire

Hour 2 of Wednesday's program begins with Cam and Zimmel as they continue the discussion of Jim Schlossnagle's hire. Hear Schloss explain how it all came together including the role Augie Garrido and Texas brass played. 

Episode Transcript

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He's a Texas legend, a Hallof Fame broadcaster, the voice of the
Texas Longhorns, and your host ofthe Craigway Show. Here he is now
Craig Way, happy to have youwith us here on this Wednesday afternoon from

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our iHeart Studios in Austin, Texas. We're just a few hours ago Texas
introduced Jim sloshn Angle as the neftBaseball head coach, bringing with him his
entire staff, including Max Wiener,the pitching coach who many thought could end
up replacing Slash as the skipper inA and M. But he is coming

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to Texas along with the hating coachand recruiting coordinator as well. Hopefully Troy
to Whiskey will stick around. I'msure he will. And you expected the
fallout to be pretty crazy from TexasA and M, and it was.
Twitter was just an incredible sight lastnight and today and of course after the
news expected. The portal has beenhit hard by former A and M players

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so far, Jace Laviolette entering theportal, Kayden Kent, Max Kaffer,
Hayden Shott, Gavin Grohovac, JamesBell Third, Jake Henbry and I think
others also joining the portal, sowe'll see what happens and see who will
follow Schloss to Austin. Of course, now there is a ripple effect because

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with David Pierce no longer being thehead coach at Texas, this may end
up with Texas players who or ratherhigh school commits are current players possibly entering
the portal as well. But we'llkeep you up to date with everything going
on on the Texas baseball scene inrelation to Jim Sloshingle. But let's go
back to Slash's comments from his introductorypress conference today. We heard from Hartsel

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and CDC in the two o'clock hour, heard his opening statement in the last
and the second and last segment inthe two o'clock hours. Well, if
you missed that, go back toa podcast page and we'll probably play that
for you again once again in thefour o'clock hour. But Slaschnegel, starting
off after his opening statement, wastalked about the culture and we heard this

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a lot with Steve Sarkesen this week, his interview with Joe Clatt and big
new conversation about culture building that whatdoes that look like? And we heard
Slashing will talk about that in hisopening statement, but here is a more
in depth answer on aligning the culturehere at Texas. Yeah, so,
Aggie, let me address the firstone. First, Augie. I can't

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remember the year, fifteen or sixteen. Maybe we played in Fort Worth and
the game ended, and I hadalways wanted to be close to Augie and
learn more about him, but Ididn't play for him or worked for him.
And he pulled me to the sideduring arrain delay and said, I
want you to come see me thissummer. And so during the recruiting season
I was in California. I wentflew to Orange, Orange County Airport,

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all he picked me up. Wehad a great dinner, as he loved
great food and drink, and wehad a long conversation about his future and
what it was like to be thebaseball coach at Texas. And I'll never
say that there was any place that'sever been my dream job. I've loved

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every single place that I've ever beenas an assistant coach. To be real
frank with you, my dream jobwas to be the coach at TCU because
that was the program that I feltlike needed had the most space to grow.
I never I'm from Western Maryland.I never envisioned that I would get
to be the coach at Texas Aand M or the University of Texas.

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That was I only ever saw thosethings on TV. What was your first
question again, the alignment. Yeah, the alignment is just so important because
there's so much uncertainty, and whenyou have someone like Chris who is at
the forefront in the meetings with thedecisions that will listen to a coach.

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He is a coaches athletic director.He has always said that to me,
his job is to serve coaches andstudent athletes. My job is to serve
to student athletes. And Chris hasalways told me his job is to give
the coaches every opportunity to be successful. And so I run to that.
And I'm not telling you that wedidn't have that at Texas A and M.

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I just felt very very good aboutthe narrowness. I guess you would
call it the just short, straightdirect lines between the president, the chairman,
and Chris. And that is comfortingto a coach, especially at such

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a big place like the University ofTexas. And that alignment that he's speaking
about is Kevin el Tife, JayHartzel Chris del Conte, the President,
Border Regents chairman, and of coursethe leg director. These guys have been
on the same page since all beganworking together, and the way they have
handled these big decisions is huge andit might seem simple, but look at

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what happened with A and M andthe way they handled the hiring the football
coach. Right, it was supposedto be Mark Stoops from Kentucky, and
then the Border Regents or donors orwhoever, we're not on the same page
with Trev Alberts, the new adand what happens the hiring of Mark Stoops
gets all messed up. You havestories coming out saying he's accepted the job,

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he has, it goes on Twitterannounces he's staying at Kentucky A and
M without the head football coach.At this point, the media stories are
crazy, and then they end uphiring Mike gelco from Duke. But all
of that shows you that no onewas on the same page in college station
when hiring a football coach, Andif you're another coach from a different part

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of the country, it's like,do I really want to be a part
of an administration like that? Buton the other hand, with Texas,
the way they worked together, thehigher Steve Starkesian, the hiring of Chris
By, or the hiring even ofJim Schlosnikle. All this stuff back in
April is when it's sounded like thisdeal was getting done between Schlosh and CDC.
No one heard a peep evec andI'm sure people knew. People knew,

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but you would think if the boardwas not aligned, if these guys
weren't working together, you would heartea leaves from people, murmurs and stuff
like that, and smoke, andit could lead to something being blown up,
like the hiring of a head coach. We saw it with Mark Stoops
in Kentucky and Texas A and Mand that has negative effects on your program

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and how it looks. But becausethese guys are on the same page and
you saw or you heard his quoteabout that and how important it is to
have great leadership, you can seethat Schlash probably he trusts CDC, but
he also sees the backing from ElTai, from Hartsul and knowing this is
a great place to coach at aprogram where everyone's on the same page and
I know they're going to do everythingin their power to help me be the

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best coach for this program and elevatethat program back to Omaha. Hiring a
head coach camp is kind of likesurgery. You need to be or you
need to have precision. And that'sexactly what Crystal Conte has done. He
is has assassin precision, surgeon precisionwhen it comes to making these hires.
I think I asked you a lotabout trust too, because you talk about
the fact that CDC can kind ofdo what he wants. Crystal Contacy can

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kind of do what he wants,and he knows he has the backing because
his board of regents as president,they all trust him. They know,
Hey, if Delconte wants schlop likecoach slash, then that means it's probably
the best hier cam. Texas hassix baseball national championships. They've been the
Omaha thirty eight times. They havenot won title since two thousand and five,

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have not been back to Omaha sincetwenty twenty two, and Slawstele was
asked about how Texas can get backto competing for titles in Austin. Uh,
yeah, I mean, I thinkyou know, we got to see
that the team, the current orpast year's roster up close and personal in
the regional Obviously some really good playerson the team, some really good young

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players on the team, and someguys that have some decisions to make in
the draft. And so our firstorder of business once we get through lunch
or this afternoon, I want tobe in contact with all of those guys,
make sure they feel good about ourstaff, let them know that we
want them here and we can builda great program around them. But I

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will tell you many SEC coaches gaveme some advice before I joined Texas A
and M in the SEC, andthe piece of advice rang has rung very
true. There is a top twopercent of player like the major leagues that
is better than everybody else, whetherit be your Paul Skins or at A

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and M. We got lucky wehad Bradon Montgomery and Jace Lava Letting,
Gavin Grohovic, guys that are justsuperior players. But for the most part,
you really don't have better players thanthe other team. You have to
have as good a players as theother team. And the transfer portal era,
everybody is big, strong, physical, and older, and everybody has

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it. So it comes down tostaying healthy, playing out, playing good
sound, fundamental baseball, and gettingthe breaks. But I think there's enough
time. We have a lot ofwork to do in a short amount of
time, but there's enough time forus to get to not just the returning
players, but incoming players in theportal as well as the high school players
that are committed here. We wantto connect with them very fast. We'll

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hear more from coach lash Stangle throughoutthe show, his thoughts on how Texas
can return back to glory but byutilizing transfer portal nil and recruiting something that
Texas has struggled with a little bitin baseball last few years. Also about
that rivalry with A and M that'sgoing to be elevated to a whole different
label with this, his relationship withCDC which allowed saw Stangle to make this

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jump, and of course how heleft A and M. All that and
more throughout the show. But upnext joining us somewhere on a beach,
it's Craig Way. That's right,you know, it's big news when Craig
Way is leaving his vacation to hopon with us and talk little Texas baseball
and more. Up next year onthe Craig Way Show,