Fullerton Will Interview UC Riverside Baseball Coach

Jack Smitheran, who has coached UC Riverside to two NCAA Division II baseball championships, will be interviewed for the coaching job at Cal State Fullerton. The position at Fullerton was vacated by Augie Garrido, who was hired as baseball coach at Illinois.

Cerritos College Coach George Horton, who played at Fullerton and led Cerritos to state community college baseball championships in 1985 and ‘87, was interviewed Monday by Athletic Director Ed Carroll and the five-member search committee. Smitheran is scheduled to be interviewed today, and Northwestern University Coach Larry Cochell will be interviewed Wednesday.

Carroll said that additional candidates also may be interviewed.

Smitheran, 46, coached UC Riverside to national championships in 1977 and 1982, and was named Division II national coach of the year in each of those seasons. He played at Arizona State when it won the national championship in 1965, and was an assistant coach at the school in 1966 and ‘67, when the Sun Devils repeated as national champions. Before coming to Riverside in 1973, he was head coach at Emporia State in Kansas for four years.

“I have a very good job here and I’m very happy,” Smitheran said Monday. “Fullerton has the appeal of being one of the top 10 programs and of being Division I. I’ll go in and ask some questions and look and see.”

Cochell, 47, has a 687-392-3 record in 21 years as a head coach. In one season at Northwestern, he was 23-20-1. From 1977 to ‘86, he was head coach at Oral Roberts University, during which time his teams were ranked in the top 10 nationally seven times. He also was athletic director in his final three years at the school.

“I’m happy they thought enough of my coaching ability to want to talk to me,” Cochell said. “If someone thinks I’m important enough to talk to, I’m happy to discuss things with them.”

Cochell also played at Arizona State. He began his coaching career at Emporia State in Kansas, and was succeeded there by Smitheran, who said Cochell helped him get the job, also his first as a head coach. Cochell left Emporia State for Creighton, and coached at Cal State Los Angeles from 1972-76 before going to Oral Roberts.

Horton, 33, played on the 1975 Cal State Fullerton team that reached the College World Series in the program’s first year of Division I competition. Horton twice has been named the National Junior College Coach of the Year in three years at Cerritos, which is his first head coaching job.

Garrido, who led the Titans to two NCAA championships in 15 years at the school, was named coach at Illinois Aug. 12.

A successor is expected to be named by Sept. 1.