Cochell Leaves Fullerton to Take Oklahoma Job : College baseball: Titan coach cites family considerations in moving.

The lure of Oklahoma proved too strong for Larry Cochell, who resigned as Cal State Fullerton’s baseball coach Tuesday and took the coaching job at the University of Oklahoma.

Cochell, 49, who guided the Titans to two College World Series appearances in three seasons, was at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa from 1977-86.

“Everyone knows I left a good job, but it was as much a family decision as it was a career decision,” Cochell said at a news conference in Norman, Okla. “When my boys (sons Craig, 18, and Chad, 14) talked about home, they always meant Oklahoma. I like the people here.”

Cochell replaces Stan Meek, who coached on an interim basis last season after the retirement of Enos Semore.

Terms of Cochell’s contract were not disclosed. At Fullerton, Cochell’s base salary of $63,000 was supplemented by income from summer baseball camps and a shoe contract.

“We couldn’t match what they were offering,” said Steve DiTolla, Fullerton associate athletic director who oversees baseball. “Larry indicated that it was too good an offer to turn down.

“He had nothing but good things to say about our program, and I don’t think there was anything that drove him out of here. But I would assume Oklahoma has more resources to work with than we have here.”

DiTolla said the Fullerton job “is wide open at this point.” The school will form a selection committee and will conduct a national search for a successor, DiTolla said. Could that someone be Augie Garrido, who built the Titans into a national power and won two College World Series championships before taking the Illinois job in 1987? Garrido’s three-year contract with Illinois expires in August, and he has not negotiated a new contract.

DiTolla wouldn’t speculate but Garrido, who is in Austin, Tex., as a coach with Team U.S.A., didn’t rule out the possibility.

“I don’t see myself as a candidate, but if Fullerton does, I’m sure they’ll get in touch with me,” Garrido said. “And if they get in touch, we’ll talk.”

Fred Hoover, who coached at Golden West College for 22 years before becoming a Titan assistant in 1989, said he was interested, as did George Horton, the Cerritos College coach who was a finalist for the Fullerton job in 1987.

Horton, who has led Cerritos to three state community college championships in the last five years, withdrew from the running in 1987 because of the job’s fund-raising requirements.

Other likely local candidates are Loyola Marymount Coach Chris Smith, who was an assistant at Fullerton in 1983 and ‘84; Cal State Northridge Coach Bill Kernan, a former Titan and Illinois assistant who took Northridge to the Division II national championship game last season; and Rancho Santiago College Coach Don Sneddon.

Cochell, who has a 791-450-2 record in 24 years of coaching, went 109-68 in his three seasons at Fullerton. The Titans finished third in the College World Series in 1988 and lost their first two games in the 1990 series.