Johnson introduced as next coach
Last week, Skip Johnson was wondering if he was going to have to relocate less than a year after moving to Norman.
NORMAN—Skip Johnson tried to downplay the honor.
But with former Oklahoma head baseball coaches Larry Cochell and Enos Semore in attendance as well as plenty of other notable names, Johnson couldn’t hold up the facade that it wasn’t a big deal to him to be named just the 10th head coach in Sooners baseball history when he was officially introduced Tuesday.
“It’s just a title,” Johnson said. “I mean that’s all it is. It’s not a testimony because testimonies are more important than titles. I believe that in my heart because it’s about teaching and developing and if we teach and develop, then the championships will come.”
It was the end of a whirlwind week and a half for Johnson, who described himself as “shaken” when he got the call from Pete Hughes a little more than a week earlier telling him that Hughes was not being retained.
When the call came through, Johnson was in Texas finalizing the details of the family preparing their Austin-area house for sale a year after Johnson ended a 10-year run as Texas’ pitching coach.
They were planning on moving to Norman but all of the sudden those plans were in flux.
“It was the same boat we were in the year before not really knowing what direction we were going to go,” Cathy Johnson, Skip’s wife, said. “So we were just kind of in limbo.
“He’s worked long and hard to be a Division I head coach and that was his ultimate goal, so I’m glad he stuck it out and went through the process and it came out right on the end.”
Johnson served last year as the Sooners’ pitching coach under Hughes and immediately told OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione that he was interested in the job when Hughes and the school parted ways.
Castiglione said that though he considered outside candidates, it quickly became apparent that the right fit was already in place.
“The ability to teach and recruit and to inspire people around him,” Castiglione said of the reasons that made Johnson that coach. “If you can’t do any of those three, you’re going to have a struggle. I don’t care how much strategy you want to talk, and I didn’t just guess on that. I called a lot of people throughout the world of baseball... I wanted to know about his character, how he handled himself around those areas.”
Later Tuesday, the OU Board of Regents approved Johnson’s contract, giving him a total salary of $375,000 through the 2022 season with a $10,000 annual raise.
Johnson said he planned to remain the team’s pitching coach but would hire someone for the pitching coach position whose primary responsibilities will be the program’s recruiting coordinator.
Johnson said he had someone in mind for the spot but would wait until things were finalized with that coach before making a public announcement.
He is less sure of who will coach the team’s hitters.
Hitting coach Mike Anderson, who has spent the last four seasons as the Sooners’ hitting coach under Hughes, attended the press conference, but Johnson said he would conduct a thorough search before making a decision.