Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Van Horn got his wish with return
FAYETTEVILLE — Dave Van Horn made a prophetic-sounding statement at his introductory news conference as the University of Arkansas head baseball coach 18 years ago on Sunday.
“This is the fifth time I’ve moved my wife in 14 years, and I’m not leaving,” Van Horn said. “This is where I want to retire.”
Van Horn will seemingly have every opportunity to do just that, based on his track record with the Razorbacks.
The 59-year-old UA graduate who grew up in Grandview, Mo., in the Kansas City suburbs, won his 700th game in 17-plus seasons with the Razorbacks two days before the coronavirus pandemic put an end to the 2020 season.
Van Horn will take a 700389 record, a .643 winning percentage, into his next game with the Razorbacks.
He has led Arkansas to six College World Series appearances, including the school’s first back-to-back showings in 2018-19, and had a loaded, veteran team ready to make another push before the coronavirus outbreak hit.
“It’s been everything I hoped it would be,” Van Horn said when asked about the upcoming 18th anniversary of his hiring. “Our program continues to get better. The facilities continue to get better. Our fan base continues to grow. I think we’re growing the game of baseball in the state of Arkansas.”
Van Horn and his wife Karen, who earned a degree in architecture from the UA in 1988 as Van Horn was finishing a stint as a graduate assistant for the Razorbacks under Coach Norm DeBriyn, have put down deep roots in Northwest Arkansas.
But not before the young couple did their traveling as Van Horn paid his dues in the game.
Dave and Karen, who is from Little Rock, packed up and moved to Texarkana, Warrensburg, Mo., and Natchitoches, La., during Van Horn’s first nine years as a full-time college coach.
Then Van Horn made a big jump to Nebraska, his first Power 5 head coaching role, in 1998. When Frank Broyles inquired to see if Van Horn would replace DeBriyn in 2002, the connection seemed inevitable, though it took a few days to materialize.
Van Horn got more than 400 e-mails from Nebraska fans asking him to stay, and his phone was averaging 10 calls per hour from reporters, coaches and fans the day before he accepted the Arkansas offer, according to an account in the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette at the time. Then-Nebraska Athletic Director Bill Byrne prepared a counter offer to keep Van Horn, the man who compiled a 214-92 record for the school, culminating in back-to-back appearances at the College World Series with the Cornhuskers in 2001 and 2002.
Byrne had the paperwork for the proposed new terms in a manila folder and was preparing to slide it across his desk to Van Horn. This happened within days after Van Horn returned home to Lincoln, Neb., after the short trip up Interstate 80 to the College World Series in Omaha, to find himself much in demand.
“I told him not to even open it,” Van Horn said at his introductory news confer- ence. “It didn’t come down to money. … It came down to how you feel about where you’re going to be, hopefully, until you retire.”
Van Horn informed Byrne he didn’t want to get into a bidding war.
“That’s not my style,” Van Horn said.
At the news conference in Fayetteville, Broyles gave Karen Van Horn a box of roses, and gave Razorback dolls to the Van Horn daughters, Hollan and Mariel, who were 8 and 4 at the time.
Broyles then handed Van Horn an Arkansas baseball cap, which he quickly put on, and held up a jersey.
“It still fits,” Van Horn said, a reference to his days at Arkansas as a player (1982) and graduate assistant (198588). “I left here 14 years ago, but I always wanted to come back. I didn’t know if it was going to be 15 years, 12 or 20 years.
“I can honestly say, when I was on my own working out or running, I thought about my family a lot and coming back to Arkansas.”
Van Horn continues to do his running at Baum-Walker Stadium, which is consistently ranked among the top college baseball parks in America, and is currently undergoing a game-changing type of renovation around right field.
Van Horn’s opinions are sought out by his peers, and
his voice carries weight in college baseball circles and in staff meetings at the UA.
The Razorbacks lost stars Heston Kjerstad and Casey Martin in the five-round Major League Baseball Draft last week and very likely three of their top signees, but the signing class is still loaded, and Van Horn and top assistants Nate Thompson and Matt Hobbs have the program operating at near-peak efficiency.
As soon as UA Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek announced the school’s plans to schedule all in-state Division I schools to reduce travel costs, Van Horn quickly worked up games against all four in-state schools — the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, UAPine Bluff, Arkansas State and the University of Central Arkansas — because it’s important to him to grow the game in Arkansas.
“I feel like we’ve come a long way,” Van Horn said. “I’ve really enjoyed living in Northwest Arkansas. There’s probably not a better place in the country, in my opinion, to raise a family and to be a part of this community. It’s been a great experience.”