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Longhorns bonded after Garrido's arrest for DUI
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Published: June 22, 2009
OMAHA, Neb.
Augie Garrido has more victories than any other coach in NCAA Division I baseball history, and his Texas Longhorns will open the best-of-three finals at the College World Series against LSU tonight.
Garrido said yesterday that he's just happy to still have a job.
For Texas, the season started with Garrido suspended for four games after his drunk-driving arrest in January. It will end with Garrido trying to lead the Longhorns to the national title for the sixth time in his career, the seventh time overall and the third time since 2002.
Garrido, 70 with a coaching career that spans 40 years, pleaded guilty to DUI and will be sentenced after the season. He said he used the arrest as a teaching opportunity for him and his team, and the players say that their coach's arrest, and its fallout, drew them closer.
"If it happened to anyone on our team, Coach Garrido would do anything in his power to keep and protect all of us around him from the negative things people were saying," third baseman Michael Torres said. "He would put his arms around us and protect us, so we wanted to do the same thing for him. That made our team bond and helped us be successful."
Garrido had met friends for dinner and wine on a Friday night at a restaurant in Austin and then stopped at a bar on his way home to see a friend. Police pulled him over four blocks from his condominium because he had forgotten to turn on the lights of his Porsche. He spent a night in jail.
Garrido told the Austin American-Statesman that he drank five glasses of wine.
Garrido is the highest-paid college-baseball coach, at $800,000 a year, and his contract puts him on track to make $1 million in 2012. He said he feared he would be fired.
"The university is far greater than anyone who serves it," he said. "If it's in the best interest of the university, I would have to expect them to replace me. It's as simple as that."
Athletics Director DeLoss Dodds offered his support but suspended Garrido for the season-opening series against Illinois-Chicago.
Garrido said he told his team that he failed to adhere to what he calls the cornerstone of his program -- "Do what's right."
"I did not do what was right. What we lose in that situation is freedom, control, respect and trust," he said. "Those four things went out the window."
Pitcher Chance Ruffin said that he and his teammates already respected Garrido as a coach. They respect him even more as a man.
"He showed us that he's a leader by taking responsibility for it and making an example of himself," said Ruffin (10-2), who will start tonight's game against LSU's Louis Coleman (14-2).
The Longhorns (49-14-1) have had a wild ride to the championship series.
In regionals, they won the longest game in NCAA history against Boston College, 3-2 in 25 innings. In their next game, they overcame a four-run deficit in the eighth inning and defeated Army 14-10 on a walk-off grand slam by Preston Clark.
At the CWS, Texas trailed Southern Mississippi by a run in the eighth before scoring its last three runs on bases-loaded walks to win 7-6. Texas was down 6-0 against Arizona State ace Mike Leake before scoring 10 straight runs to win 10-6.
The Longhorns never led Friday's 4-3 bracket-clinching win over Arizona State until Cameron Rupp and Connor Rowe hit home runs in the bottom of the ninth.
LSU (54-16) has trailed for just a half-inning in Omaha. Texas has led after only 11 of 27 innings.
Garrido joked that his team has hired illusionist David Copperfield as an assistant coach because of the way Texas has pulled out victories lately.
"Someone asked me yesterday if we were going to practice," Garrido said. "I said, ‘Practice? How do you practice the way we win?'"
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