The life of Oregon’s baseball coach George Horton isn’t one of much rest these days.
Upon the announcement of his hiring on Sept. 1 at Oregon’s first football game, Horton has been working seemingly non-stop to get the program up and running.
He’s been trying to hammer out a first-year schedule, catch up on the entire recruiting process, figure out where the Ducks will actually play their games and, earlier last week, he met with Nike officials to go over some designs for potential uniforms. There’s no word yet on whether the uniforms will rival the football team’s in terms of unique style.
And he’s yet to find a new home. Currently, he and his wife have been staying in the loft of a family who’ve had recently hired Oregon coaches stay in their home before.
“The house isn’t supposed to be ready until January,” Horton said. “It’s been just a whirlwind. I’m still learning about the community, the institution and the athletic department… It’s been unbelievably busy.”
The whole process is something Horton isn’t used to. After being the head coach for 11 years at perennial baseball powerhouse Cal State Fullerton, Horton coached at a college that already had a system, reputation and field in place. Now he has to start fresh and, although he enjoys it, it’s a tiresome process.
“One of the things that’s got me stressed out is we don’t have a schedule,” Horton said. “Every day that goes by we get later and later and it’s going to get tougher.”
The other thing that has him worried is trying to catch up in the recruiting process and getting high schoolers to sign onto a first-year program.
He’s making headway in that issue. During the California-Oregon football game, Horton brought four potential recruits to watch the game with him. He’s also drawing from the well of athletes that committed to him while he was still the coach at Fullerton, though he’s having a hard time persuading Southern California kids to venture to the Northwest.
“We had three commitments at Fullerton and only one of the three is interested in talking to us up here because of the out-of-state situation,” Horton said. “The other two are going to stay with their commitment to Cal State Fullerton.
“The recruiting pool has shrunk so much because a lot of those guys have already committed.”
But he’s found at least one player on board for the 2009 season. The first verbal recruit is coming from Eugene.
Darrell Hunter, a senior pitcher/shortstop at Thurston High who pitched for Churchill in the 2007 5A championship game, is the first Oregon baseball recruit since baseball’s revival.
“Just being a local kid is good for the program,” Hunter told The Register-Guard. “It’s pretty exciting to be the first one to be a Duck baseball player in 26 years.”
Hunter’s a starting point, but Horton says he still needs to move quickly before the November deadline to talk to players.
“After that, it becomes what they call a quiet period where you can’t go out and see guys off campus,” Horton said. “It’s almost like a train coming down the track and we’re doing the best we can to get guys in here to see this wonderful university and the facilities we have.”
While Horton controls most of the business here in the Northwest, he’s having his assistant coaches – former Fullerton assistant Jason Gill, 37, and former UC Irvine pitching coach Andrew Checketts, 31 – find potential recruits. The two are separated into Northern and Southern California and, as a result, the first Oregon squad should be stocked with California ball players.
“It might be a problem in this first wave because we’ve done most of our evaluations down there and not up here,” Horton said. “We’re going to have to bring in mostly California kids initially until we get out and see these kids in Oregon and the Northwest and create those networking opportunities.”
To get those California recruits to commit to Oregon, a first-year program with rainy weather, Horton has to do some persuading. But some of that has already been done for him.
“The first thing we sell is the area, the community. The GameDay people did that really well,” Horton said referring to the ESPN college football show. Horton has a newspaper clip of the event saved in his office to show recruits. “And I fell in love with the area, the institution, the administration and the positive direction the athletic program is going in. It has unbelievable energy, direction and financial backing.”
Horton said that his history coaching college baseball would help convince recruits as well. Besides the actual recruiting process, Horton has to figure out how many scholarships he wants to use in the first season. There are 11.6 scholarships to use.
“It’s a moving target and a complex situation for us,” Horton said. “None of this is going to be easy to get competitive right away.
“But if anybody can do it we can.”
How to fill the roster – check the club team
During baseball’s 26-year absence, the club baseball team at Oregon has flourished primarily as a result.
The team has made it to the Club Baseball World Series four consecutive years and finished second in the nation last year, losing in the championship game to North Carolina.
The club has seemed to always be full of talented players who wanted to come to Oregon rather than try walking on to schools with baseball programs at any level. Players on the team believe that if Horton needs to fill out his roster with walk-ons, he should check them out.
Senior club member Bryan Hansen, who said he’ll stay out Oregon for a fifth year to complete his double-major requirements, is one player who will try out. Hansen batted .426 with 11 home runs and 54 RBIs last season, with a .902 slugging percentage. If any club member hopes to make the team, Hansen seems to stand out as the one with the best shot.
Hansen, who is originally from the Midwest, played his senior year of high school baseball at Sheldon High after his parents moved to Oregon. He was offered a scholarship at Willamette University, University of Chicago and walk-on opportunities at Purdue University and the University of Kansas, but the out-of-state tuition and big-school atmosphere at Oregon made him stay close to home.
Entering his fourth year of club baseball, Hansen would be a bit awe-struck if he had the chance to play under Horton.
“It would be weird,” Hansen said. “But it’s something I’ve been thinking about and the guys on the team have been pushing me towards.”
Club coordinator Jeff Rogers said Hansen would probably be the best bet to make the team and said the tryouts, whenever they happen, will be a zoo. He first said he expected to see 1,000 guys trying out.
“I say that kind of joking, but honestly, 400 – with all the attention it’s getting,” Rogers said.
Horton said they could feasibly have tryouts by December to take a look.
“I know those guys are chomping at the bit,” Horton said. “The first year is probably the best chance for walk-ons to contribute to the team.”
Horton also wants to take a look at some of Oregon’s football players who played baseball in high school. He’s already talked to football coach Mike Bellotti about the possibility to which Bellotti responded:
“Anybody but my quarterback.”
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