OSU baseball success extends to not just Gary Ward
The Oklahoma State baseball season ended Sunday night with an 8-6 loss to Texas Tech in the deciding Game 3 of the NCAA Super Regional in Lubbock, Texas. But by any stretch, it was an outstanding season for the Cowboys. A Big 12 Tournament championship and a robust postseason that had the Cowboys on the brink of another College World Series berth.
But that's not unexpected.
We sometimes think of OSU baseball as being the Gary Ward glory years, and everything else as trying to live up to Ward's remarkable 19-year tenure, which included 16 straight conference championships 10 College World Series appearances, including three NCAA second-place finishes.
But the truth about OSU baseball is that the Cowboys have a superb tradition that was in place before Ward and has been sustained after Ward.
Here's a stat. Every OSU baseball coach since 1941, except one, has taken the
Cowboys to Omaha for the College World Series.
The slacker was Frank Anderson, who coached the Cowboys for nine years, 2004-12, and had some really good teams but never got the Cowboys to Omaha. But even Anderson's company wasn't bad. The previous OSU baseball coach who didn't reach the College World Series? Henry Iba.
Iba coached Cowboy baseball from 1934-41 and was pretty good at it— the Cowboys were 90-41 under Iba, and the College World Series wasn't available. The NCAA baseball championships didn't begin until 1947. Iba gave up baseball after 1941, and it seemed to be a good decision. Cowboy basketball took off and became a national power. Same with Cowboy baseball.
The list of OSU coaches is quite impressive.
• Toby Greene coached from 1942 through 1964 (there was no team in 1944 or 1945). His teams had a winning percentage of .707 and five times reached Omaha— 1954, 1955, 1959, 1960 and 1961. The 1959 team won the NCAA title.
• Chet Bryan coached 13 years, 1965-77. His teams didn't have a stellar winning percentage, .555, but his Cowboys made the College World Series three straight years — 1966, 1967 and 1968.
• Ward, you know all about. A winning percentage of .752, seven straight CWS appearances in 198187 and subsequent trips in 1990, 1993 and 1996.
• Tom Holliday, Ward's long-time pitching coach and the father of Josh Holliday. Tom Holliday had a winning percentage of .652 and made the CWS in 1999.
• Anderson, who was 329-208 and never won the Big 12.
•Josh Holliday, whose winning percentage is .641 and has a 2016 College World Series trip on his resumé.
So it's an impressive history, even aside from the Ward dynasty.
“Proud of the kids,” Josh Holliday said after the game Sunday. “They played great baseball. I'm forever grateful to them. This is one heck of a good team. I'm very proud of this group. I thanked them after the game. I'm not sad. I'm proud.
“I thanked them for being a joy to coach and letting us as coaches enjoy the love of baseball and team with them and not have to worry about the nonsense that some teams take you through off the field and during the school year. This has been a wonderful group, and I will remember this team with an incredibly special place.
“They've reunited our alumni. I've never had so much positive response from players that used to play here for how proud they are to watch how these kids competed, and even though we lost the game today, we won the season, because we achieved real `team,' and you can't say that every year you put on your uniform.”