Halfway into his introductory press conference as Florida’s newest athletic director, Scott Stricklin said something that caught Kevin O’Sullivan’s attention.
“I love college baseball,” Stricklin said.
O’Sullivan, UF’s baseball coach, was giddy with excitement.
“I was like, ‘Heck yeah,’” he said. “But I know that. I knew that before he got here.”
On Tuesday, Stricklin made it clear he plans to support all of Florida’s sports. But that support was especially apparent for baseball.
“I’ve seen a lot of SEC baseball games from my roles in different schools in the past, and I’m really excited to work with Sully and what he’s got built here,” Stricklin said. “I think it’s a great sport, right? And Florida’s been really good at it, and I think we’re going to make sure this facility matches that.”
Specifically, Stricklin said he’s looking forward to progressing the recently announced plans this month to renovate McKethan Stadium. Additions to the baseball stadium include new club seating, a second-level concourse, an expanded press box and improved player amenities.
Before becoming Mississippi State’s Director of Athletics, Stricklin spent plenty of time around baseball programs.
He served as Auburn’s baseball contact as an associate media relations director from 1993-98. And as a student at MSU, he worked for the baseball team’s media department.
O’Sullivan, who hadn’t met with Stricklin prior to Tuesday’s press conference, said Stricklin’s words were reassuring.
“It is nice to know that,” he said. “And I think that’s one of the things I really enjoyed with Jeremy [Foley] and Chip [Howard] is that they are avid baseball fans, and you can look up in the stands, and they came to a lot of games. And obviously having Scott here and him being involved, it should be exciting.”
Considering O’Sullivan’s longtime relationship with UF’s outgoing AD, Jeremy Foley, one might think he would’ve been concerned as to who would fill the job next.
After all, Foley gave O’Sullivan the Florida job nine years ago despite O’Sullivan’s lack of head coaching experience as an assistant coach for Clemson.
But O’Sullivan didn’t lose any sleep over the search process.
“For me, I didn’t worry about it,” he said. “I had total faith that they were gonna find somebody that they thought was gonna be successful here. I didn’t really spend a whole lot of time thinking about it.”
And Foley, a baseball fan himself, knows Stricklin is equipped to help maintain UF baseball’s level of excellence.
“Mississippi State’s famous for their baseball,” Foley said. “They’ve done a great job with that. They won the conference title a year ago. They played for it all a couple years ago. He understands what big time baseball is about.”
Contact Patrick Pinak at ppinak@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @pinakk12.
Coach Kevin O'Sullivan and the Gators dropped their first home game since March 23 in an 8-4 loss against Jacksonville Tuesday night. “We’ve gotta clean up some mistakes,” O'Sullivan said.
