Jay Johnson wouldn’t be the coach he is today without the experiences he had at the University of San Diego.
Johnson spent eight seasons as the associate head coach at USD, serving as the Toreros’ hitting instructor and recruiting coordinator. He learned what it takes to compete at the Division I level from USD’s longtime coach, Rich Hill.
But when his Arizona Wildcats face Hill’s Toreros on Sunday in the Tony Gwynn Legacy, Johnson will have one goal in mind: Winning the game.
“I’m very grateful for that time,” Johnson said. “It’s a place that will always be special to me. When they’re not playing us, I always pull for them. But not on Sunday.”
Despite the fond feelings he has for USD and Hill, Johnson won’t allow himself to think about the Toreros until Saturday night. After a 1-0 loss to No. 4 Arkansas in San Diego on Wednesday, Arizona (3-1) has challenging matchups with San Diego State and Michigan before facing USD to wrap up the tournament.
Johnson was willing to reminisce about his time at USD in an interview with the Star. Here’s a portion of that conversation, which has been lightly edited for context and clarity:
How did the opportunity at USD come about?
A: “I was the head coach at Point Loma (Nazarene), and we had a few successful seasons in a row. I didn’t know him really well, but I always viewed Coach Hill as a model coach. Got a head job when he was young and really took the ball and ran with it. I liked their style of play. It was a program I always had paid attention to, and they were 10 minutes away.
“My college coach, Scott Sarver, who was the head coach before me, and Coach Hill were good friends. He had passed along to him that if he ever had a chance to hire me, he should. A spot came open, and I was really conflicted, honestly. I loved Point Loma. I loved being a head coach. And I almost didn’t do it. It was probably the most important decision of my life. Probably outside of my dad, Coach Hill’s impacted me more than any other person.”
Why was the decision so difficult?
A: “We had a really good program rolling. We had almost won the national championship in ’04. In ’05, we were ranked sixth in the country. I knew we had another really good team coming back. It was just a place that was special to me. It was where I played.
“I talked to several people I trusted. The end goal was to be a Division I head coach at a place where you had a “chance to go to the College World Series. Some of the advice I got was, ‘You could continue to win 40 games a year here at this NAIA school, and you’re never going to have an opportunity to be a Division I coach.’
“That was what I decided to do. I knew I was going to work for someone who could show me how to advance my career. I’m not talking about get other jobs. I’m talking about how to do it at the highest level really well.”
What were the biggest things you learned from Coach Hill?
A: “The importance of building culture within a program. Teaching. It doesn’t matter what you know as a coach and how smart you are. It’s your ability to impart that knowledge on your players in a way that they can actually apply it on the field, so they really understand it. That’s a gap that a lot of coaches miss. A lot of coaches know what to do, but they might not necessarily be great at the how-to-do-it part of it for their players.”
How did being the recruiting coordinator there prepare you for the head jobs you had subsequently?
A: “My first year at USD, we opened with Texas, which was coming off winning the national championship, and we swept them. We beat David Price at Vanderbilt. We beat Tim Lincecum at Washington. I quickly found myself in a little different competitive environment.
“The only way to match up was to get as good a players as you possibly can. It’s more than the ‘recruiting is the lifeblood of your program’ type of theory. It was for survival when you were trying to win at the level we were trying to win at at a private school that costs $48,000 a year.”
Your claim to fame as a recruiter is of course Kris Bryant. How did you persuade him to come from Las Vegas to San Diego?
A: “It was more of a fit thing for him. He was a 4.7 student in high school. Wanted to be wanted. Wanted to be valued. Our whole staff made it clear to him that he was our top priority. You don’t give out too many 100 percent scholarships in baseball. Which we did to him. It was easy because he was getting a lot of academic money as well. And then, more important than getting him to commit to USD was getting him to bypass professional baseball out of high school.
“That decision obviously paid off for him, and I think it’s a good example you can point to of developing and (taking) the college path to a professional career.”
You played against USD with Nevada in 2015. You had an 8-2 lead entering the eighth inning and lost 9-8. What do you remember about that experience?
A: “It was really weird. It was really hard to look across the field at a team that you recruited. It was a really odd deal. After that game, Coach and I decided we weren’t going to play each other ever again unless it was the NCAA Tournament. There was a (scheduling issue) in this tournament; we have to play them.
“To me, every game’s important. It doesn’t matter what the other jersey says. I just remember that night feeling very proud – hey, here’s two teams that we had a big impact on that were both championship teams.
“It’s hard to put into words. I was proud, but at the same time … I’m not a fan of playing them all the time. This is how I would want it said: When our games are over and I look at D1Baseball.com, those are the first games I look at, how those guys did. I want them to do well – other than this Sunday, of course.”
