Rivals Horton, Gillespie Have Always Gone Nose to Nose

George Horton remembers the first time he coached against Mike Gillespie. Horton was a rookie, a 24-year-old third base coach at Cerritos College, and Gillespie was the head coach at College of the Canyons.

Horton thought it would be smart to disrupt Gillespie’s team by yelling at the Canyons third baseman. Constantly. Obscenely. Annoyingly.

“I’m not proud to say,” Horton said, “that I was out of control. I was shooting my mouth off. Coach Gillespie came out and right away we went nose to nose. He told me how bush I was. I said some pretty derogatory things to him. We both left with some pretty hard feelings.”

The hard feelings are gone now. Horton has just finished his fourth year as head coach of Cal State Fullerton. Gillespie is in his 14th year as head coach of USC. Horton took the Titans to the College World Series last season. Gillespie took the Trojans to the World Series in 1995 and was national coach of the year in 1998, when USC won the national championship.

Through the years, through Horton’s time at Cerritos and Gillespie’s time at Canyons, and as the two coaches have moved up to prominent Division I jobs, they have come to appreciate each other, to be friends.

Sunday at Fullerton’s Goodwin Field, USC, the region’s top seed, eliminated the No. 2-seeded Titans. The final score was 8-3 and it means USC gets to play Georgia Tech next weekend in an NCAA super-regional. It means that the Titans, hosting an NCAA regional for the first time ever, finished a rather disappointing season in the way they lost too many games this year. They were a team of singles hitters in a game that uses a metal bat and rewards power. The Trojans knocked out two home runs Sunday. The Titans couldn’t come close to going over the fence.

If he had to lose, though, Horton was happy it was to Gillespie. “We go back 20 years,” Horton said, “and I respect the man a great deal.” Gillespie praised extensively the way Horton managed all weekend. Gillespie was impressed at how, even though the Titans lost Friday in their first game to Loyola Marymount, “George managed not to win one game [at a time] but to win the whole tournament.”

One of Gillespie’s players also was full of compliments for Fullerton.

Brian Barre, a sophomore center fielder, batted ninth in the lineup for the Trojans. And in three games this weekend Barre was seven for 12, including a double, a triple and two home runs, had two stolen bases and two RBIs. He made the all-regional team. Where this hitting explosion came from, Barre’s not sure.

But, he said, “I was happy to do this against Fullerton because they have a program just like ours. They are fundamentally sound. They do all the little things right.”

Barre should know. He grew up in Garden Grove.

“I live 10 minutes away from here,” Barre said. “I have always loved Fullerton’s field. It’s a great field. I used to come over all the time and watch the Titans. I loved Mark Kotsay. I wanted to come to Fullerton but they didn’t really recruit me.”

As a 5-foot-7 outfielder, even though he was an All-Southern Section Division III first-team selection as a senior at Pacifica High, Barre ended up as a non-scholarship player for USC and unrecruited by Fullerton.

While Barre was sitting shyly at a microphone explaining himself, explaining how he had overcome a late-season slump by coming home and listening to his high school hitting coach, Kent Woods, tell him how to swing again, Horton shook his head when he heard how Barre had wanted to come to Fullerton.

“Sometimes you just miss on a kid and he comes back to kill you,” Horton was saying as Barre talked about how he and his young Trojan teammates have learned about each other and about winning from Gillespie.

“You recruit Player A and Player B comes back to bite you,” Horton said. “Barre came back to bite us this weekend.”

Yes, Gillespie said, he remembered that game back in 1977, the one where Horton was put in his place. “I didn’t do that,” Gillespie said. “You sure did,” Horton said, “and you were right.”

It was a sweet exchange between two men who have chosen to teach fundamentally correct baseball to young men.

The Titans had a tough weekend. By losing to Loyola Friday night, they were forced to win twice Saturday. It wasn’t until 12:25 Sunday morning that the Titans had eliminated Loyola. Most of the players didn’t get home until 1:30. They’d had to beat Virginia Tech early Saturday afternoon too. They were back at Goodwin Field at 11:15 Sunday morning and they knew that to advance again they needed to beat the Trojans twice.

“They did everything right,” Gillespie said. “The way they played this weekend, it was admirable.”

But the way the Trojans played was better. The Trojans went with pitches, drove the ball where the fielders weren’t, and they left as winners.

“I really do love this field,” Barre would say as he walked away. “I look forward to coming back.”

He will. Horton and Gillespie always play each other. Nose to nose.

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com