Kirk Saarloos is TCU's New Era of Baseball

The head coach talks about the team’s position in Fort Worth and what it means to be a good family person.

By TCU Magazine

May 16^th, 2022

as told to Amanda Vasquez

Last year TCU chose a familiar face as baseball’s 20th head coach. Former MLB pitcher Kirk Saarloos has been at TCU throughout its 10 seasons in the Big 12 Conference. During that time, the Horned Frogs have totaled six conference regular-season and tournament championships, double the total of the next-closest schools, as well as four College World Series appearances.

Saarloos has mentored a host of All-American pitchers at TCU who gained school records and national acclaim along the way.

You started as the pitching coach, then became a recruiting coordinator, and now you’re the head coach. What have you learned from each position? And what new skills have you learned as head coach?

I came over from California to Texas 10 years ago. My first year I was just the pitching coach, and my second year Tony Vitell left to be the recruiting coordinator at Arkansas. Chuck Jeroloman left to be a recruiting coordinator at Jacksonville University. And then Head Coach Jim Schlossnagle was actually a Team USA coach that summer. So I became the recruiting coordinator, and there was nobody else here to help recruit. It was like baptism by fire. I figured out real fast who the good players were, what good teams they played on and tried to see all of them that summer. I think that was a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to have to get after it really fast and get relationships with summer teams and coaches.

I learned a lot: first of all, how big the state of Texas really is. Recruiting all over the state I learned what people in Texas and across the nation thought of our program at TCU.

Here we can recruit at a national level. It was fun to be able to coach at a public school in California and now a private school in Texas, two of the biggest states in the country. I learned how to put together a team as a recruiting coordinator.

Kirk Saarloos calls Long Beach, California, his hometown. His Alma Mater is California State University, Fullerton. Courtesy of TCU Athletics | Photo by Sharon Ellman

As a recruiting coordinator and pitching coach, I was in charge of getting good players and coaching the pitchers. Now I’m still in charge of doing those things, but I have to make sure that I’m taking care of the 40 guys on our team. I’m also thinking about the guys we’re recruiting in the 2023 class, ’24 class, ’25 class and even the ’26 class, which is crazy.

As a head coach, there are a lot of decisions to be made, which is a good thing. If you surround yourself with good people, it helps making those decisions a lot easier. We’re recruiting eighth graders, which is crazy because my oldest is finishing his eighth grade year. Like, holy smokes, I can’t believe someone would be talking to my son about wanting to go to college. I would say, as a recruiting coordinator, you spend more time looking into the future, whereas as a head coach, you spend more time present day.

What impact do you hope to make on the TCU baseball team?

Playing at the highest level in professional baseball taught me that if you concern yourself and get your identity wrapped up in the game that you play, it’s going to be a very unfulfilling experience. My goal for our program, for our team, is obviously to win a lot of baseball games, but also to have them understand that baseball is something that we do, it’s not who we are. I want them to be able to separate being a student, being a great brother or eventually being a great husband.

Baseball is something that affords you opportunities that maybe other people don’t get. But also, don’t put all your eggs in that basket.

Baseball cannot be your sole identity in life because eventually you’re not going to be a baseball player, and you’re going to be doing something else.

The TCU baseball team has been described as having a family-like atmosphere. How do you believe you’re going to preserve that value?

Every single day, I think the team sees everybody in this office — all the coaches, all the support staff — pulling in the same direction.

I have three kids, my daughter, my 8-year-old, comes around all the time to practice. Coach Kyle Winkler ’19 has a young daughter who comes to practice. Zach Dechant, our strength coach, just had a son and he’s here on the weekends. In terms of getting my family out of the house and coming to baseball games, we live a mile down Stadium Drive. Building a family atmosphere for the team means them seeing us as not just coaches and support staff, but also as fathers and husbands, and seeing our wives and their dedication. We have the team over for dinners and get-togethers.

Kirk Saarloos was named TCU's new head baseball coach at a news conference on June 15, 2021. Courtesy of TCU Athletics | Photo by Ellman Photography

You asked to push back the news conference to announce your new position as head coach so you could attend an award ceremony for your daughter. What does family mean to you?

Family, to me, it’s really everything.

Besides my faith, my family is always going to be put ahead of anything else.

It’s the way I was raised.

I had a great mom and I had a great dad. Prioritizing family was lived out every single day as I grew up. When you see it every single day, you want to have that same feeling and that same lifestyle with your family, and hopefully, that passes on to your kids and their kids.

The good thing about being a head coach is that you can schedule your practice a little bit around family time. On the day of the press conference, my daughter was getting an award at her school. The time Jeremiah Donati, director of intercollegiate athletics, had it scheduled for was right when Emery was getting her award. I thought, well, they already offered me the job, I already accepted it, so I guess I can just say, "Can we back it up a little bit?”

Why are you passionate about TCU Baseball? And what is your overall vision for the team?

It’s twofold. Coaching college-age kids, you have an ability to have a major impact on their life. When they go off to college and are 18 to 21 years old, they are going to grow up and figure out who they are as a person. The great thing about TCU is we have guys who are also trying to be the best they possibly can be in baseball. We have people who are phenomenal in the classroom, we have people who are awesome on the baseball field, and we’re able to affect their lives in a positive manner.

When I played baseball in college, it was the same thing: My coaches were phenomenal. I want to be able to do the same thing.

TCU is a really unique spot. It’s in a great city, it’s a place that has a ton of support, it has a family atmosphere. Everybody knows everybody on campus — you’re going to bump into people at Kroger or out for dinner at Dutch’s or whatever it may be. You’re seeing a lot of the same people even though you live in Fort Worth, the 12th biggest town in the country. Fort Worth and TCU are special places.

I want our fans and the city of Fort Worth to be proud of not just the talent we put out there, but the type of people they’re going to run into around town. I want their sons and daughters to see a TCU Baseball player and want to be like them when they grow up.

Kirk Saarloos played for the Houston Astros (2002-03), Oakland Athletics (2004-06, 2008) and Cincinnati Reds (2007). Courtesy of TCU Athletics | Photo by Ellman Photography

Who or what drives your passion for baseball?

My dad played at UCLA. Growing up, I’d be waiting with a glove, bat and ball when he got home from work. We’d be in the backyard until my mom yelled at us to come inside for dinner. I would say it would always be him.

What can TCU baseball fans expect to see from your team in the new season?

Fans will see a lot of new faces. Like with every year and every team, there’s turnover. There’s a ton of excitement. You’re going to see guys who are enjoying themselves playing the game. The guys are preparing really hard and putting the time and the effort into it.

Every year it comes down to a lot of the small things, and that’s what we’re practicing.

The big stuff that people see every day at the games is one thing, but it’s all the small stuff. The guys are up at 6 a.m. going to the weight room four days a week and practicing six days a week. There’s a lot of time invested in not just the activity, but in the program, our core values and them coming together as a team. Fans are going to see a fun brand of baseball and one that’s hopefully going to be really successful.

Footnotes

Editor’s Note: The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

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FootNotes

Editor’s Note: The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.