Washington's Husky Ballpark (Photo Courtesy of Bryan Young)
The Washington Athletic Department announced on June 22nd that head coach Ken Knutson will no longer serve as the head baseball coach. As of right now, the Huskies have not been able to settle on a coach with several high profile head coaches and assistants pulling out of the running. The two most recent guys to pull out are Pepperdine’s Steve Rodriguez and LSU assistant coach David Grewe. The name everyone keeps bringing up is Nino Giarranto from San Francisco.
Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com is reporting that Mike Trapasso of Hawaii and Gonzaga’s Mark Machtolf are two other candidates for the job. (His report is available here.)
I have a problem with all of these guys. They have better situations at their current job. The Washington job is not that great as they lack the facilities to compete with the powers in the Pac-10 conference.
Nino Giarranto of San Francisco just completed his 12th season with the Dons and has a school age son. Would he really want to pack up his family and move to Seattle? I doubt it, unless Washington is going to pay through the roof for him.
Mike Trapasso of Hawaii has been with the Warriors for the past eight season bringing some stability to the program. He has turned around the program and plays in the fairly competitive WAC conference. Trapasso plays in a fairly large stadium on the island where they average over 2800 people a game. We do know that Hawaii typically doesn’t pay their coaches well so he could leave for the Washington program in a bigger conference.
The last name is Gonzaga’s Mark Machtolf who has turned the Bulldogs program around over the last few years. He would be an excellent hire with his recruiting connections in the Washington area. He has a much better facility in Washington Trust Field at Patterson Baseball Complex. Click here for photos of the facility.
The Washington opening is a job that is intriguing with the lack of a quality facility right now but the school has the resources (money) to bring in a top quality coach. What do you think is going to happen? Do you see a current head coach going there or do we see one of the top assistants take his first job with the Huskies?
5 comments
Prior to the season, Washington released plans for a major facility upgrade that will give the program a top-notch facility by the 2012 season. I believe construction will begin following next season.
I didn’t see any of that information on their official site. Do you have a link?
I doubt any of the head coaches mentioned have a chance. It’ll be an assistant, I’m almost certain about that.
Those are the guys that are getting reported on multiple sites and in the newspapers. Lets see what happens.
I agree alohaball – the head coaches most likely wouldn’t leave their current positions. I have heard the name Dan Hubbs mentioned a few places – he’s the head asst. at Cal? I believe he also has local ties to the Seattle area. He is well known for his recruiting – might he be a good fit?
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