COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KXXV) — “I promise you, I will do everything I can to take this baseball program to new heights," Michael Earley said.
Tuesday afternoon, Michael Earley was officially introduced as Texas A&M’s next head baseball coach.
Earley served as the Aggies hitting coach for the last three seasons and both current and former players gave their input about early being a great candidate for the job.
“I didn't know what to expect,” Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts said.
“But I would say that he knocked it out of the ballpark on the initial Zoom, and it was after that Zoom that it became clear to me, not only was he a kind of a fun candidate to talk about, he was a very serious candidate based on how he performed over the last few years.”
Texas A&M has continued to become one of the nation's premier college baseball programs and by hiring Earley, they're able to maintain a winning culture and retain the core nucleus of last year's squad that’s coming off a College World Series Final.
“We don't want to take a step back,” Alberts said.
“We have so much momentum in our baseball program, the last thing that we want to do is regroup and spend the next three years rethinking. We're going to keep going… we have a lot of big visions around this program, baseball is critically important to this athletic department.”
Despite not having any head coaching experience, Earley is known around college baseball as one of the best coaches and recruiters in the game right now and beyond his coaching abilities, he understands and embraces the spirit of Aggieland.
“Texas A&M, the 12th man, the whole university is super special,” Earley said. “It hit me the first day I walked in here. This place is different and if you don't like different, that's your problem and I think the biggest thing that has taken us is the community and the people.”
Earley said it's been the craziest week of his life, but he's enjoyed the challenge so far.
“I'm glad I'm here,” Earley said.
“They asked me, ‘how long do you want to be here?’ And I'm like, I'm just trying to win my first game. So I hope, I win a lot of baseball games and that I'm here for a long time.”
Earley has retained Jason Hutchins and Will Fox from the previous coaching staff and has also added Texas’ Caleb Longley, and University of Washington head coach Jason Kelly.
Since Earley was announced as head coach, Ali Camarillo, Gavin Grahovac, Jace LaViolette, and Hayden Schott have all withdrawn their names from the portal and will be back in Aggieland next year.
