Chip Hale is no stranger to coaching baseball, nor is he a stranger to the college game as a standout player himself. However, he has never been in charge of a college baseball program until Wednesday when he was officially introduced as the new head coach at Arizona, his alma mater.
Once the excitement of his new gig begins to wear off, Hale will have to begin building his program. So far he has made the move to retain assistant coach Dave Lawn, who will once again lead the UA pitchers after moving into a different role two seasons ago.
With Lawn at his side and other coaches who will be announced later, Hale will be tasked with taking over a program coming off a College World Series appearance to make it his own.
The Wildcats will be losing some key players, but others have decided to stick around and continue their careers under the new UA head coach. There is a strong foundation for Hale to build on. The cupboard is not bare in Tucson, and he's confident about the growth of the team as he takes over.
"My impressions of the team? Very impressive," Hale said Wednesday. "In fact we sat and watched them probably knock Kumar Rocker down 10 picks [in the MLB Draft] and that's not easy to do. That's a very premium pitcher. So it was very impressive.
"So there's a lot of talent, and we're gonna add talent. It's more than talent that wins. It's culture, and it's passion. I hear that in their voices, and I'm happy to hear that."
Hale has already held a Zoom virtual meeting with his players, and he has been impressed with the message he's hearing from the team up to this point. Though the deadline for transfer players who want to be immediately eligible next season has already passed, there could still be some players who ultimately still decide to enter the transfer portal.
Keeping the group together up to this point has been key, and Hale understands continuing to do so will also remain important moving forward.
"If some guys are gonna go they're gonna go," he said. "We're not gonna make it easy on them. We're pounding. Dave [Lawn] has done yeoman's work since Jay [Johnson] left of keeping this thing together. I'm gonna tell you that right now. He is responsible for everything that's going on right now. I'm getting in there and learning, but he's calling me at 10 o'clock at night 'we gotta call this parent.'
"He's on it, so we're gonna do the best we can to keep everybody."
Working to keep all his own players on board will be a precursor into the bigger picture for Hale. He has no experience on the recruiting side, and that is one of the biggest question marks for the Wildcats as a career MLB assistant coach takes over the helm at UA.
Hale will be part of the puzzle, but with assistant coaches doing most of the leg work on the recruiting side he knows hiring the right people underneath him will be key for future recruiting success at Arizona.
"I'm hiring people who have done it for years, and I'm gonna learn from them," he said. "We're gonna get after it, and ... it's about relationships. Kids wanna come play for the coach, and that's part of the reason why this whole portal issue and are we gonna keep this guy or that guy. Some you're not.
"Quite frankly, we talked about it. I played for a pretty darn good coach, coach [Jerry] Kindall, and if coach [Jerry] Stitt in the midst who knows what would've happened. So, I have to be sensitive to that and understand these kids. The great thing that I've heard so far is their passion for the university, for the city of Tucson. That's special. I think we have a chance with the guys coming back to do something special next year."
Both Hale and UA athletic director Dave Heeke have focused on an ability to build relationships as the ingredient with the new Arizona coach that will allow him to have success as a recruiter.
"Recruiting is really about relationships," Heeke said Wednesday. "It's about forming connections, relationships, trust. Having people that understand what we have here helping to spread that word. All of those things are important in recruiting. Fundamentally recruiting is a people business about communicating and being able to share that vision and being straight up and straight forward.
"That's what we've always done here and that is what Chip is all about. He will be very successful on the recruiting front."
Hale agreed to a five-year contract to lead the Wildcats earlier this week that will pay him $2.55 million over the course of the deal.
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