Garrido plots revival, but end may be at hand
AUSTIN — He intended it as a joke, a walkaway wisecrack from one of the funniest men ever to practice Zen or give a bunt sign. And sure enough, when Augie Garrido uttered it Wednesday morning, everyone chuckled.
“I’ve got my health, and I’ve got my wealth,” Garrido said.
But the laughter couldn’t hide this truth — Garrido’s one-liner might have been the most honest public assessment offered by anyone in the UT athletic department in seven years.
After spending the better part of a decade mired in major-sport mediocrity, the Longhorns still have their money. They’ve made more of it than anyone in college sports this century, and the revenues aren’t slowing down even as the championship runs do.
So they have that going for them, just like the 77-year-old Garrido can take solace in knowing his years of making about $1 million per season as UT’s baseball coach won’t leave him destitute any time soon.
But now, for the third time in less than three years, his athletic department has to make a choice. Do they continue to put their faith in a man who lifted the Longhorns to the national elite in his sport, and who helped build the sports colossus their department has become? Or do they admit it’s time to move on?
Practicality beat sentimentality in 2013 with Mack Brown. It happened again in 2015 with Rick Barnes. And from the way Garrido sounded Wednesday morning, even he sees it coming for him, too.
“I will be held accountable,” Garrido said of his team’s 21-28 record. “I am responsible. That’s where that goes. Leadership has a price. … The judgment will come from all sorts of places.”
To be clear, Garrido said he wants to return next season to serve out the final year of his contract. To be even clearer, if he chose to quit on his own, he wouldn’t receive the $300,000 UT would owe him if it fired him this offseason. And considering that in 2014 Garrido pleaded for an extension by saying how impossible it is for a lame-duck coach to lead a program on a one-year deal, it’s fair to wonder if he really expects to get that chance.
If UT athletic director Mike Perrin decides to sever ties with Garrido, it certainly would be understandable. During his 20-year run with the Longhorns, Garrido won two national titles, made eight College World Series trips and became the winningest coach in college baseball history.
But unless the Longhorns win next week’s Big 12 tournament, they’ll finish with their first losing record since 1998, and they’ll miss the NCAA tournament for the third time in the last five years.
When talking Wednesday about his team’s disappointing underachievement, his quotes were peppered with phrases that might as well have been stolen from Brown’s news conferences in 2013, or from Barnes’ in 2015. He said the losing caused “embarrassment,” and that “it’s not acceptable,” and then in the part that gives UT fans their most visceral flashbacks, he vowed, “I can fix it.”
Brown said that. Barnes said that. Few believed them then, and few believe Garrido now. Still, he said he hasn’t lost belief in himself.
“It takes a certain resiliency to coach here, in anything,” Garrido said. “And I think I have that.”
And if his boss doesn’t agree?
Garrido still will have his wealth.