THE BATTALION MAROON LIFE 12
Impatient: The story of
Jim Schlossnagle From player to coach, A&M baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle is on a journey through life’s twists and turns By Casey Stavenhagen @CStavenhagen
T
exas A&M baseball returns to Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park, fresh from Omaha, Neb., with a shiny new addition to its trophy case. It’s a warm, summer day — Schlossnagle can’t stand the cold. The stands are packed with Aggies, old and new. They might even have a party on the field. They’ll gather for a War Hymn to go down in Aggieland history. First though, at each home game, 15,000 Aggie fans crowd the lining of the diamond at the intersection of Olsen Boulevard and George Bush Drive. What is prototyped through the Kyle Field gameday experience is translated into Schlossnagle’s new home. It’s not about whether A&M won or lost; fans leave the concourse happy they showed up. They ate a 44 Farm’s Aggie Dog — it was great. Maybe they had a Karbach 12th Man Lager which was also great. They loved the music; they loved the dance team. Maybe there was even a petting zoo. An Aggie baseball game is the amalgamation of the theatrics of minor league baseball and the fervent fandom of college athletics. People fly in just to catch a weekend series. After the game, children can make their way to the third baseline and get an autograph from their favorite player. This all takes place tomorrow — Schlossnagle can’t stand waiting. On a Zoom call from his office at Olsen Field in January, Schlossnagle detailed his vision. Through the window past his right shoulder, his vision was beginning to take shape in the form of expanded third baseline
seating, metal-framed bleachers in place of the grass berm. Schlossnagle understands the impossibility of renovating the ballpark in its entirety by tomorrow, but if there is anyone to try to build Rome in a day — maybe two — it’s him. Good, bad or indifferent, creating a community and coaching baseball is not Schlossnagle’s job — it is his lifestyle. Schlossnagle spoke matter-of-factly about his life, unless in reference to baseball, community, family or his faith; he lives through these pillars. On June 9, 2021, Schlossnagle chased a fresh start on that lifestyle at A&M as he left the school he turned into a perennial college baseball powerhouse, Texas Christian University, after 18 years. Now, Schlossnagle wants it all tomorrow. He wants to win tomorrow. He doesn’t want to let anyone down. He’s not patient, and he’d be the first person to tell you. Impatience, though, is not a flaw in his character. Schlossnagle is driven by a sense of urgency, but he’s not panicked. His path to College Station is 36 years of
collegiate baseball in the making. His path forward, aside from the seven-year contract he inked in June, is uncertain. His goals, however, are crystal clear. “I don’t want to let anybody down. I know what I’m capable of, I know what this coaching staff is capable of,” Schlossnagle said. “I work from a point of, my job now is to not let anybody down, it is to meet the expectations that I have for myself and certainly this place has for this baseball program. I want it to happen tomorrow [despite] knowing that that’s usually not how that happens.” In his relocation, Schlossnagle inherited a baseball program that owned the third-longest active NCAA Tournament appearance
streak — 13 consecutively — until the end of the 2021 season. That roster and coaching staff has now been largely redone with Schlossnagle at the helm. Yet, without the past, none of the present would be possible.
Where it all started
The story of Schlossnagle begins in Smithsburg, Md., population of 2,967. Smithsburg High School’s parking lot fits no more than 100 cars and is sandwiched in between Smithsburg Elementary School and Smithsburg Middle School. Deep center field of the high school’s baseball field, where Schlossnagle played, lies just outside city limits — an area littered with farmland, forming an agricultural barrier on all sides of the town. For a man who now eats, breathes and lives baseball, it hasn’t always been that way. Schlossnagle doesn’t have a lot of hobbies. He doesn’t play golf, and he fishes maybe five or six times a year. Sports have always been the center of his life through various avenues, but baseball was only the focus when it was his last option. Throughout high school, he was a member of Smithsburg’s basketball team, its football team and its baseball team, in that order. Basketball was what he, and Smithsburg, truly excelled at during his senior season. Schlossnagle was the starting guard for the Leopards’ team that went to their first-ever
Graphic by Robert O’Brien & Casey Stavenhagen — THE BATTALION
