OMAHA, Neb. — About 200 family members, friends, fans and supporters gathered outside the Hyatt Place hotel to give the Arizona Wildcats a proper sendoff Saturday afternoon.
Dave Heeke was right in there among them.
The UA athletic director is a baseball guy through and through. He played the sport in college. So did two of his sons. He has served as chair of the NCAA Division I Baseball Selection Committee. He has been to the College World Series multiple times.
This time, Heeke’s school is playing in it. Arizona squared off against Vanderbilt on Saturday evening at TD Ameritrade Park. It’s the Wildcats’ second appearance in the CWS in five tries under Jay Johnson.
Johnson already had been hired — and had taken the Wildcats to Omaha — by the time Heeke arrived in Tucson in 2017. The program’s success led Heeke and Johnson to work out a contract extension that runs through the 2023 season.
That doesn’t guarantee that the UA will be able to keep the sixth-year coach. Johnson reportedly is among several candidates being considered for the vacant LSU job. LSU conceivably could double or even triple Johnson’s base salary; he’s scheduled to make $540,000 and $550,000 in the final two years of his current deal. Johnson also has shares in a longevity fund worth several hundred thousand dollars.
Johnson’s contract status was one of several topics Heeke discussed when he met with Tucson-based media Saturday. Below is a portion of that conversation. It has been lightly edited.
You know this sport well. How big a deal is it for a coach to lead his team here two times in five tries?
A: “Anytime you can be on the elite stage, one of the final eight teams, be in Omaha, I think that’s every program’s goal. For a head coach to do that twice in his time here says a lot about the type of head coach and the program that we have. It’s a big-time, elite program, and it’s a goal every year to get to Omaha.
“Jay and I talk about that: Let’s be Omaha-built so that we can know that we’ve got the ingredients — if things go the right way and we play the kind of baseball we want to play — that we can be back in Omaha (regularly). That’s what we want to do.”
What impresses you about the way Jay runs his program?
A: “Jay is a players’ coach. But he’s got a great vision; he understands what it takes to assemble the pieces. He can look broadly at things and analyze it — but then narrow right down and focus on what’s most important. Those skills are important. You can’t get locked down on one thing. You can’t be too broad in your perspective. You’ve got to be able to transition between both those, and Jay does that incredibly well.
“He’s a baseball grinder ... whether it comes to recruiting, practice, to the way he runs the program. Time and commitment (mean) a lot in baseball, and it pays off a lot with success.”
When you have that kind of success, other schools that have openings are going to express interest. How do you ensure that this is a long-term relationship?
A: “It was one of my priorities when I first got here to make sure that Jay was in agreement with us that we wanted to build something really special. It was important to me at that time to build his package here at Arizona so that he wants to stay here for a long time. We talked about that — what do we need to do so that we can do the things that you want to do? We did that, and we’ll continue to do that.
“It’s a compliment when our coaches are on lists and are sought after. These are some of the best (coaches) in the country. We look forward to dealing with that at the end of the season and having a conversation with Jay.”
Have there been any discussions about doing more upgrades to Hi Corbett Field?
A: “We’ve done the clubhouse. We’re going to continue to do some more upgrades to the back area, the clubhouse area, the players’ area, the coaches’ area. It is an older ballpark, so there are some things that we need to continue to maintain on a year-to-year basis, whether that’s painting or enhancing and upgrading some of the spectator facilities and services.
“It’s the best college baseball atmosphere in the West. We want to keep building on that. There’s no reason that it can’t continue to be that. But there are amenities that we need at Hi Corbett ... that’ll be important to entice our fans to keep coming — and to help generate revenue for our program.”
This has been an unprecedented spring for U of A sports. What do you make of the success so many programs have enjoyed?
A: “I think 14 of our programs went to the postseason. It’s pretty remarkable. We won a couple conference championships in there. It’s been a great year. And if you think about ... where we were at the beginning of this season, or really at the end of last year, with the pandemic — not really knowing what we were going to do, where we were going to go, how we were going to do this — and to see how our coaches, our staff and all of our student-athletes have dealt with that and had remarkable seasons, it’s been something else.”
It was about this time a year ago when you were starting to allow student-athletes to come back to campus. Could you have imagined things would be almost back to normal a year later?
A: “I’m thankful. It’s been a long run. It was really hard on staff, coaches and the student-athletes to have to go through that ... every day, testing in the morning, dealing with all the different issues around testing. And if there were positives or contact-tracing, lots of uncertainty. It’s good that we can see that ... in the rearview a little bit.
“Ticket sales have been good. People are ready to come back. It was really evident in the (NCAA) Regionals and the Super Regionals in baseball. People just wanted to get back together. We had great crowds, and I think that’ll (continue to) happen as we go into next year.”
You can’t force student-athletes to get the vaccine. Can you encourage them to do so?
A: “We’ve tried to just educate. Like everywhere else, provide the best information possible for our student-athletes and our staff so that they can be safe and healthy and protected going forward. We’ll make the appropriate accommodations and make sure we keep them in a safe place and keep our staff in a safe place.”
Maybe you’re used to this because you’ve been to the Women’s College World Series, but what did you make of the crowd that showed up at the hotel?
A: “It was great. We had letterwinners, former players, parents, extended family. We had a lot of staff here. It was fun to send the team off to a major event.
“This is the pinnacle. When our team walks out there, we’re one of the best eight teams in the country with a chance to win the national championship. It’s pretty special.”
