By
Connor Doyle and Ryan Finley
Arizona Summer Wildcat
Livengood: It's time to go in another direction
Add another name to the list of long-tenured UA coaches who won't be back next season.
Jerry Stitt, UA's baseball coach, resigned last Friday, ending months of speculation that this would be his last year after another mediocre season in the Pacific 10 Conference.
Also leaving the program are Stitt's two assistants, pitching coach Bill Kinneberg and bench coach Victor Solis, who were released after Stitt's resignation.
In resigning, Stitt ended a 27-year career as a part of the Wildcat baseball program, where he served as a player, assistant coach and head coach. Stitt, 54, was just the fourth - and least successful - Arizona head coach in the past 80 years, posting a .559 winning percentage.
"The past 23 years, 18 as an assistant coach to Jerry Kindall and the last five as head coach, have afforded me the rare opportunity to work at an institution that I have loved since the first day I set foot on the campus in 1964 to play for (former UA head coach) Frank Sancet," Stitt said in a prepared statement released by the university. "My lifelong commitment to the University of Arizona will continue and I will do whatever I can to support the entire Wildcat athletics program."
In his tenure at the helm of the UA program, Stitt and the Wildcats managed to make the College World Series just once, when they finished 33-23 in 1999. Since then, UA has been 20-28 in Pac-10 play, losing regularly to in-state rival Arizona State.
While UA athletic director Jim Livengood would not say whether Stitt was forced to resign, he did admit that the coach's departure allows the Wildcats "go in another direction."
Speculation ran high before the season started that this may be Stitt's last, but some of the players were still surprised when the announcement came out.
"I'm still shocked (the coaching staff) is not coming back," said Kevin Rupprecht, a sophomore pitcher. "I thought if (the athletic department) were going to (ask Stitt to resign), it would be at then end of the season, not in the middle of the summer."
Rupprecht also indicated that he thought Stitt's job would be safe, even though the coach failed to lead the team to the postseason for the fourth time in the past five years.
"We thought he would be with us next year," Rupprecht said. "We knew we deserved a playoff bid and we thought we had a good season. Finishing .500 in the Pac-10 is a tough thing to do."
The awkward timing of Stitt's resignation leaves the athletic department with a tight schedule for finding a new coach.
Kathleen "Rocky" LaRose, UA's associate athletic director and the athletic department official in charge of the search for a new coach, realizes the importance of finding a replacement for Stitt soon.
"(We need to find a new coach) as quickly as possible," LaRose said. "We have recruits that are coming in and we have student athletes planning for the fall or are here already for summer school, but I'd hate to set a date because you never know how a search is going to go."
LaRose also made it clear that the search is difficult because of the job requirements that they've set out.
"We're looking for a winner," LaRose said. "Someone who is good with student athletes, who will give them a great experience both academically and athletically, and who knows how to succeed. The replacement would need experience at the DI level or another high level of baseball, because that's a pretty good indicator of success."
One likely replacement could be former Pepperdine and Florida head coach Andy Lopez, who was fired as the Gators' head coach June 4.
Published reports said Livengood gave Stitt a verbal contract extension a month ago only to rescind his offer after Lopez's firing from the Gators was made public.
Lopez won a College World Series title with Pepperdine in 1992 and finished with a record of 278-159-1 in seven seasons at Florida.
The 47-year old Lopez was the NCAA National Coach of the Year in 1992 and 1996.
Department officials would not comment on Lopez or any other possible candidate, citing the need to maintain the integrity of the process.
Some other names have surfaced as possibilities, including Chip Hale and Ron Hassey, both of whom are former UA players and have gone on to continure careers in baseball.
Hassey's son, Brad, was the Wildcats' starting shortstop last season.
