Chris Del Conte and Jim Schlossnagle are looking forward to a reunion at Texas. The pair previously worked together at TCU from 2009-17 before Del Conte left to take the athletic director position with the Longhorns.
There they were a part of five College World Series appearances as Schlossnagle twice won the National Coach of the Year award. He left Fort Worth for Texas A&M in 2022 as the winningest coach in Horned Frogs history.
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Now after taking the Aggies to the College World Series finals this past season, Schlossnagle will team up with his old partner ahead of UT’s move to the SEC. It’s something they long hoped could happen, as the Longhorns AD explained in a recent appearance on SEC Network.
“It’s exciting,” Del Conte said. “We’ve known each other for years. When I left to go to Texas, the hardest conversation I had was with Jim. He’s a dear friend. We’ve shared families together, lives together. We walked every Sunday after church. It’s just one of those things where I never thought it was possible and it came to fruition.”
Schlossnagle’s exit from College Station didn’t come without controversy as he denied that he was leaving following the Aggies’ loss in Game 3 of the CWS finals. He said his intention when taking the A&M job was to “never take another job again” just one day before his move to Austin was reported.
It was later revealed that a deal had been agreed upon between Schlossnagle and Texas prior to the start of the NCAA Tournament. Del Conte revealed how quickly the whole thing played out once the school knew it was moving on from David Pierce.
“When we decided to make a change, and it happened relatively quickly, it was, ‘I’m gonna go down and see him,’” he said. “I’m an old school guy like when I went to see my wife on a date, I asked in person. Now they do it on the Twitter. I don’t even know how that works. I wanted to have him tell me yes or no.
“We sat and we hugged and we talked for about a half an hour about him losing the national championship game and what it meant to him. We’ve been there eight times and I saw what we did at TCU. So, if he would have told me no, I would have got in the car and drove away.”
Now that they’re back together, Chris Del Conte and Jim Schlossnagle will look to build the same success they previously found at TCU in Austin.
The post Chris Del Conte on landing Jim Schlossnagle: ‘It’s just one of those things I never thought was possible’ appeared first on On3.
