The Rise and Fall of Auburn Baseball

BY Phillip Marshall
Auburn Undercover
19 June 2014

Auburn’s once-proud baseball program has fallen on hard times, harder than anyone could have imagined when Hal Baird retired after the 2000 season as the winningest baseball coach in school history.

How did it happen? Why did it happen? It started after a disappointing season in 2004.

As the baseball season ended, Auburn’s athletic program had hit on rocky times. SACS probation had cast a shadow over the entire university. Just five months earlier, university president William Walker had led a clandestine trip to talk to Louisville coach Bobby Petrino about replacing head football coach Tommy Tuberville.

The trip, on Thursday before Auburn played Alabama, had been exposed within a matter of days. What came to be known as Jetgate eventually cost Walker his job. Ed Richardson took over as interim president. Athletics director David Housel, who had been on the trip, announced he would retire and relinquished control of the department to Baird, who had answered when the school he loves called. The men’s basketball program was hit with NCAA scholarship reductions.

Richardson, with the unique presidential nickname of “Chainsaw” because of his penchant for firing people, told Baird he wanted baseball coach Steve Renfroe and basketball coach Cliff Ellis gone. Legendary women’s basketball coach Joe Ciampi retired.

SACS probation and Jetgate had given Auburn a major black eye nationally. Baird’s position as special assistant to the president was temporary, and the search for a new athletics director had not even begun.

Against that backdrop, with Richardson determined to be involved in every decision, Baird was charged with hiring coaches who would not even know who their boss would ultimately be. Mike Anderson, then at UAB, wanted the basketball job. Baird wanted him. Richardson didn’t. Eventually, Jeff Lebo was named head men’s basketball coach. Nell Fortner took over the women’s program.

The baseball team struggled to a 12-18 SEC record in Renfroe’s fourth season but played such a challenging nonconference schedule that it was still one of the last four off the board on regional selection day. It was just the second time in 12 years Auburn had failed to make an NCAA regional.

Renfroe, who had been Baird's long-time assistant, had led Auburn to regionals in his first three seasons. In 2003, the Tigers had been the No. 4 national seed.

Baird told Richardson he didn’t think one bad year was enough to cost Renfroe his job. He explained that circumstances would make it difficult to hire a proven coach. Richardson wouldn’t budge. Renfroe was fired.

Baird immediately set his sights on Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin and thought the deal was all but done. But when Corbin returned to Nashville from his Auburn interview, the Vanderbilt chancellor was waiting with what amounted to almost a lifetime contract and other concessions and incentives. Corbin stayed at Vanderbilt.

South Carolina coach Ray Tanner, Baird’s long-time friend and former assistant, was next on the list. Tanner seriously considered it but decided to stay put. Baird tried Virginia coach Brian O’Connor. He got nowhere. Finally, it was down to Mitch Gaspard, who was the coach at Northwestern (La.) State, and Tom Slater, a former Auburn assistant who was the head coach at VMI.

Richardson wanted Slater. Baird agreed, and Auburn baseball moved on. Bad times were coming.

In the 10 seasons since Renfroe was fired, Auburn has had just one winning SEC record. It has lost 20-plus SEC games three times.

Slater, who recruited the team that would win the West for John Pawlowski in 2010, was gone after four seasons. John Cohen, who had won an SEC championship at Kentucky, was highly interested in the job, but he wanted more money than Auburn was willing to pay. Pawlowski got the job and Cohen went to Mississippi State.

After last season, Pawlowski was fired and Sunny Golloway was hired for $650,000 a year. There was an immediate flood of harsh criticism of Golloway and the way he had run his program at Oklahoma. Golloway boldly predicted his first Auburn team would go to Omaha for the College World Series. Instead, a team he proclaimed had more talent than any he had at Oklahoma came crashing down, losing 20 SEC games and finishing 13th. When things went badly, Golloway publicly blamed his assistants and his players. If he ever blamed himself, I didn’t hear it.

The season ended in turmoil with accusations and recriminations. Auburn lost its last eight home games. After an investigation, Golloway kept his job.

What now for Auburn baseball?

Golloway, who rarely goes on the road recruiting, fired Scott Foxhall, his top recruiter, after the season. Recruiting is at a virtual standstill. Highly rated players, even those with Auburn ties, are showing little to no interest in Auburn.

There is some talent, starting with pitcher Keegan Thompson. Jordan Ebert, who played the outfield last season, was Auburn’s leading hitter the past two seasons and apparently will return. Golloway has apparently hired veteran pitching coach Tom Holliday. But is there enough talent to get back to playing in regionals?

Golloway went to eight regionals and one College World Series in nine seasons at Oklahoma. Maybe he can eventually do the same at Auburn. But, for now, the powerhouse Baird built has become an SEC bottom-feeder.

Renfroe, the man Richardson said had to go, is the head coach at Briarwood Christian School near Birmingham. His three NCAA regionals in four seasons at Auburn are more than the three coaches who came after him have managed in 10 seasons.
That is the sad state of Auburn baseball.