LIVE NOTES: Jim Schlossnagle introduced as Texas A&M baseball coach

Jim Schlossnagle has been hired as the 20th head baseball coach in Texas A&M history and is being introduced to the 12th Man on Thursday afternoon. The following are live, paraphrased notes from the press conference introducing Jim Schlossnagle as the Aggies’ head baseball coach.

NOTE: There are multiple events for Jim Schlossnagle’s welcome. We will try and get notes from each.

Welcome event

• Jim Schlossnagle, Ross Bjork and Andrew Monaco have stepped onto the stage.

Andrew Monaco

• Howdy! Today we welcome a new member to the Aggie family.
• Jim Schlossnagle is an Aggie.
• Schlossnagle has said: The more you give, the more you invest in others, the better teammate you become. On and off the field. Teammates, family and faith.
• Monaco introduces Bjork.

Ross Bjork

• Howdy!
• Bjork thanks Monaco on his service to Texas A&M.
• “It’s a great day to be a Fightin’ Texas Aggie!”
• Thank you for everything that has transpired in the last year. Tomorrow will be 66 weeks since we shut down college athletics. A lot has happened to get us here, and we’ve come so far. That’s a credit to the experts, coaches and fans.
• Our track & field team is in Eugene competition for a national championship.
• This is an exciting day for Texas A&M baseball. We have only introduced three other baseball coaches since 1959. Before 1959, we had 17 coaches, including coach “unknown” in 1894.
• Tom Chandler, Mark Johnson (who is here today and receives a nice round of applause) and Rob Childress. We thank him for his service.
• Chancellor John Sharp is here today. We want to thank him. He cares deeply about athletics and wants it to be done the right way. Sharp was the first person about a year ago to say we can, should and will play college sports in April of 2020. Thank you for your foresight.
• Thank you to the board of regents, many of whom are here today.
• We have lots of head coaches here, but in particular, I'd like to introduce Gerrod Chadwell, our new women's golf coach, who is here.
• During our search, we formed an advisory team to help me find the best coach. Kevin Hurley helps us oversee our baseball team. Joe Fields and Justin Moore were also on that team. We employed a search firm to help us identify candidates. I had some advisors at home, including my wife Sonya and sons Peyton and Paxton. We had everything done, and Paxton wanted to know if he was a good coach. No pressure.
• Texas A&M baseball. Olsen Magic. Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park. The train. Bubbles when we score. Ball 5, 6, 7. The Rifleman. Kids on the berm. Some pretty famous heckling. Second 203 is back in full force in 2022, and you can stop tweeting at me. Those are the things that define Texas A&M baseball. So should competing in the SEC and state of Texas. Hunting to host regionals and super regionals as well as going to Omaha and winning a national championship. The leader will help us achieve those dreams while living by the Aggie core values. It came down to one man: Jim Schlossnagle.
• He’s the winningest head coach in the state of Texas in quite some time. 20 conference championships. Five trips to Omaha and 11 wins in the CWS. The three-hour meeting was one of the best I've ever had. There is a connection here.
• A big welcome to Kati, Jackson, and the new head coach Jim Schlossnagle!

Jim Schlossnagle

• Howdy!
• What an awesome day.
• I've been on the other side of Olsen Section 203 many times.
• I’m honored and humbled to be here.
• Baseball is not a game to talk about. It's a game to practice and play, so I won't be long up here.
• I want my kids to know how much I care about them. They are students at TCU, but they were 100 percent supportive of me taking this position.
• I want to acknowledge coach Childress and his staff, as well as coach Johnson and coach Chandler, for laying the foundation of what is already an outstanding baseball program. It's our job to build on it.
• TCU means a lot to me. The chancellor, president and athletic directors there could not have been more supportive of me. My move to Aggieland should have no negative reflection on TCU. They are two different schools with a high commitment to baseball. The goal is to see them in Omaha and beat them. We will beat the Horned Frogs.
• This is all about the players, and there is nothing more important than them. I want to thank the players at TCU. My opportunity to stand here as your head coach is a reflection of the players at TCU, UNLV and other places before that.
• The program belongs to the players and former players. Any former player that is out there, the ballpark is always open to them. I want to get to know them. They’re super important to me.
• My job is to put people in a position to have success. When we all do that, the results will take care of themselves.
• To future Texas A&M players, get ready. We're coming for you. We're going to teach you, develop you and show you what is special about this place. There are no negatives here. The same things you evaluate are what I evaluated when making this decision. We have the tools and will continue to help players become the very best and reach the major leagues.
• After academics and player development is team success. We want to play for and win national titles. As a recruit, you can achieve all of that here.
• I am very involved in recruiting. I don't have many hobbies. My job is a lifestyle. I will be out as much as much as I’m allowed to be.
• To our great fans, you have my full commitment that there will not be a minute, hour or day where I am not doing something to better this program. I've had to stand in the opposing dugout at Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park. My job is to put a product on the field that everyone wants to see because it's great baseball. An Aggie baseball game should be THE thing to do in the spring.
• The goal is the national title. There will never be a day where it is anything other than that.
• I am an impatient guy and losing feels worse than winning feels good. I cannot stand to lose. You can hold me accountable to that.
• We are going to do it the right way. Anything worse having is going to take work, and as soon as it happens, it will.
• I'm super excited, and I’ll get working to get us to where we want to be.
• Thank you. Gig ‘Em!

Ross Bjork presents Schlossnagle with a #22 Texas A&M baseball jersey. The official press conference is coming up shortly.

Introductory Press Conference

• Big fan of old-fashioned vanilla Blue Bell ice cream. That’s my weakness dietarily.
• I think one of the things that attracted me to the position is not where the position is but what it can be. Part of that is expanding the facility and making it the place to be. No disrespect, but if they can have 12-15,000 people at a game in Starkville, then certainly we can get to that point here. That’s my vision, along with Ross Bjork. As a coach, you don’t want to speak out of turn when you talk about facilities, but we spoke about that when we met for the first time. There are things I want to do shortly to improve the facility for the fans, coaches and players so that we can all be successful.
• It’s hard to evaluate the roster off a stat sheet or without seeing them play. I know thee guys bleed for their school. In my spare time, the SEC Network and such have been great. Like I said, I don’t have a lot of hobbies other than baseball. I watched a lot of Texas A&M. I spoke with some players in town and some incoming players. I’ll be meeting with them all shortly. They’re our players, and we’re going to do everything we can to make them better.
• The one-time transfer is going to be part of baseball and college athletics for a long time, and we’ll hit the portal for sure, but it has to be the right fit. I’m a culture guy, and you build and maintain your program with high school players and supplement it with transfer players. When I get a full evaluation of the roster and an idea of what the players want to do, we’ll go from there. It’s a continuing thing. The portal will help us, but I don’t want to live by it. I want to recruit high school players who want to be here for the long term.
• Academics, player development and team success. If you’re a player who aspires to get a great degree, who wants to become a major league prospect and wants to win championships in the best league in college baseball, if you’re afraid of that, you shouldn’t come here. If that’s what you want, all bets are off. This is a great place, and we’re going to improve it. It has been proven that championships can be won here. I left an already amazing place for a different place. My job is to have the postseason success what we were able to do at TCU and better that.
• You start in Houston and the surrounding areas. Great high school programs and summer programs. My job is to make A&M an option for those players. We’re going to make it hard for them to not choose this place, and it doesn’t make any sense for them not to choose this place. We’re going to recruit the best players, regardless of where they’re from. More often than not, Houston is where we’ll start.
• This time last week, we were getting ready to play a regional in Fort Worth. We had a postseason meeting, and I met with our eight amazing seniors, and I wanted them to know I was 100 percent invested in what we were trying to do. I’m excited to be here, but I wish we were still playing today. I knew if I ever left TCU, it had to fit the perfect criteria professionally and personally. Everything lined up. As soon as my children told me they were all-in on this, it was just a matter of getting over the program I’ve been living and breathing for 18 years. This is a good day for TCU too. Everything has a shelflife, and there may be people there who want a new voice. We’re looking forward, not looking back.
• I like a challenge. Not a blind challenge, but one in which there are things in place, and there is room for growth. Programmatically, I hate the term “CEO coach.” To me, that implies you’re not a baseball guy. We’re not just looking to have a good team but a great program that is sustainable over time. I felt like at 50 years old. I have plenty of energy to do something cool again. We went from a place that had been to just two regionals in 100 years to a place that went to five College World Series. Here, I talked to coach Tanner, the AD at South Carolina, and when I was in college, he was the coach at NC State. He left NC State to go to South Carolina. I asked why he did that. He told me he wanted to coach in the American League East one time. The SEC West is the American League East of college baseball. It’s going to be tougher than I imagine, but that’s the challenge. I didn’t want to have any regrets in my coaching career.
• Time table is hard to say. I haven’t seen any of the guys play. I want to be in Omaha next year, but there is a lot to be worked on. Every good thing takes work. It doesn’t necessarily have to take time. The thing about baseball is that it can happen for everybody. In 2016, we were sitting in the driver’s seat and had to win one game. This little school called Coastal Carolina won three. Crushing. Regardless of level, you have to put your team in position every year to play well in the NCAA Tournament.
• Boomer White and I have an awesome relationship, and it’s very unique in that I spoke to him this week. Congratulations to him. He just became a father. He had a walk-off hit in the College World Series in 2014. He’s a great guy with a great name, and he walks into my office and tells me he’s transferring. Being an Aggie had always been in his heart, and for his life, he had to do that. It was just what he wanted to do. I didn’t really talk to him again until the Super Regional in 2016. We won that game, and he was upset. I gave him a big hug. We had a great conversation this week about his experience here, and he said some great things to the administration here. I look forward to rekindling our relationship.
• Mark Johnson is super important and has been an advisor to me in life for a while. I see him a lot. There are great resources here, and coach Johnson will be somebody I lean on for a thousand different things. I’ve been lucky as a head coach to come into programs that have had legendary coaches that have these things. This is his program as much as it is anybody's. I want to give him that respect every single year.
• Time table on assistants is as soon as we can for the right people. One of the biggest attractors to this job is Bjork’s commitment to hiring the right people. Whether it be any number of the guys that have worked with me, the key is to identify talent, whether it’s a player or coach. I want upwardly mobile people. I’m not afraid to hire a guy who will only be here three years because it helps me hire the next guy. Give them a framework to let them work, and let them go. With Mosiello, I’m a pitching guy as an assistant coach. He was the head coach of the offense. We’ll see what happens at TCU with the job, but he’s a candidate to be here.
• We never want to be one-dimensional. We want to win in many ways. It starts with starting pitching. If you’re just a team that can run and steal bases, that can be defended against. If you hit the ball out of the ballpark, that can be defended against. You want to have a good balance. Sometimes 18-22-year-olds make mistakes, and it looks ugly. The goal of an offense is not to get hits but to score runs. Until we hit a rough spot, we were leading the nation in runs scored. I’m not that big on the sacrifice bunt. I want bunting to put pressure on the other team and not give up outs. I want us to be multi-dimensional.
• The 2015 Texas A&M team was one of the best teams I’ve ever faced. There was a lot of pressure from them. That’s what we want to bring here.
• The greatest instructional manual anybody can have is the Bible. I am not perfect. There has only been one perfect person in this world, and they nailed Him to the Cross. Everything I am as a person is because of my faith. I try to live my life and treat people well. My family is more important than anything. I want to give Jackson and Kati everything to be successful. At TCU, we held baseball chapel once a week, not required. I want to be involved in FCA here and give players the option. If that’s part of their life, great. If not, that’s fine too. That’s how I live my life.
• I’ve been coaching for 30 years and have been in a lot of neat atmospheres. All I remember of 2016 is that it was so hot. The stadium is straight up, so a bunch of people are on you all the time. We had one of the games under control. We scored early. We stayed ahead. The crowd got into a little bit. The second game, somebody from A&M hit a home run in the first inning. Then our pitcher threw ball 2, 3, 4... Here we go. I remember thinking when he would ever throw a strike. I’m not sure I could have in that position. It’s a great place. I’m happy to be in the right colors now.
• A&M has its own core values that align with mine. “Selflessness” is all about what you can do for other people. For teams to have success, you have to give something up. “Excellence” is trying to be one percent better every single day. It’s the Compound Effect, which is one of my favorite books. There is no such thing as giving your effort on the field without giving the same in the classroom. “Energy” is about your attitude and effort, and you don’t have to be a great player to do that.