As Texas gets set to officially join the SEC, the SEC Network is celebrating the arrival with an hours-long festival on campus highlighting some of the major sports success the program will bring. And that includes new baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle.
Schlossnagle found himself caught in a pickle when he was asked about his potential interest in the Texas job in the moments immediately following Texas A&M‘s defeat in the national title game against Tennessee on Monday night.
He essentially shot down the question and chided a reporter for asking it, making it seem like he had no intention of leaving the Aggies.
A day later he was introduced as the Texas coach.
The SEC Network’s Laura Rutledge asked Schlossnagle on Sunday night if there was anything he wished he had handled differently in the last week.
“Sure, I wish I would have answered that question in the press conference differently,” Schlossnagle said. “I think coaches, that’s a hard question to answer. It’s a really hard question to answer 20 minutes after the last out of the national championship game.”
That’s certainly a fair defense, though there are ways to deflect the question that might not have raised quite as big a ruckus as the answer Schlossnage settled on.
More than anything, he seemed sorry for the reporter who asked the extremely pertinent question.
“But I apologized for that. That young man didn’t deserve that,” he said. “So it is what that is. I don’t think anybody could do anything about the timing of it, because if you wait two days what does that do to A&M? I wish those kids could be celebrated. They should be celebrated. That team should be celebrated. I’m glad coach (Michael) Earley got the job, because they hired one of our staff, they can celebrate that team and they deserve being celebrated.”
Schlossnagle did point out that it’s a tricky position to be in as a coach, considering a potential career-advancing move while weighing your responsibility to your current team and players.
It’s not a fun position to be in.
“The timing’s never clean in any of these things,” Schlossnagle said. “I think coach (Mike) Elko didn’t get to meet with his team when he left Duke for A&M. And there’s just no way to meet with the entire team before you do that.”
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