Striking Out : Coaches Offer Give and Take

Fellow coaches are something of a double-edged support group for Mike Batesole and Tim Montez, alternately offering condolences and scavenging players.

Batesole, Cal State Northridge coach the past two years, and Montez, his only paid assistant last season, have been out of work since Northridge dropped baseball June 11.

They’ve passed time mainly by answering a blizzard of phone calls.

“Hi, Mike/Tim. Tough break. Those Northridge administrators are clueless. Anything I can do to help, you just let me know. . . . Now, I don’t have any scholarship money left, but do you think you could talk any of your guys into walking on at my school?”

Batesole estimates he has talked with 80 Division I coaches, trying to place his players and feel out job offers.

Montez, a pitching coach and recruiting coordinator who left UC Santa Barbara for Northridge last year, has been equally busy.

“I said to Mike, ‘I’d like to say I know how you feel, but I don’t,’ ” Fresno State Coach Bob Bennett said. “He’s the one out looking for a job. I feel for him because he really had things rolling at Northridge.

“You just don’t know what words to say to a guy. This was his life, and you hate to see it messed with because of something he had no control over.”

Batesole, 33, was a finalist for an opening at Iowa that went to a longtime assistant.

North Carolina State has contacted him about a job as an assistant, but Batesole is reluctant to take a pay cut and leave Southern California for something less than a head coaching job.

In two seasons at Northridge, he established himself as one of the nation’s top young coaches. The Matadors led the nation with 52 victories in his first season, and he has a two-year record of 94-38-1.

Montez, 36, who also coached at Pepperdine, is a finalist for a pitching coach opening at Arkansas.

Long Beach State Coach Dave Snow gave Montez a strong endorsement.

“I’ve told those guys, and I’m sure others have as well, that I’ll do anything I can do,” Snow said. “They both are quality people, and they both are in the top percentile of college coaches.”

Batesole, married with four children, has two years left on a contract that pays him about $70,000 a year. Montez’s contract expired Monday. He is married with two children and has put his home in Newbury Park up for sale.

Northridge’s plans for Batesole are unclear. Except for a minute-long phone call from Athletic Director Paul Bubb informing him that the program was cut, Batesole has not heard from anyone at Northridge in more than a month.

“They never called me in one-on-one, they never called to say good job, lousy job, nothing,” he said. “But Tim is the one who has been treated unfairly. There isn’t a person on the Northridge campus who has put in more hours the past year than him, and he is left with nothing.”