Chip Hale is sitting at a podium in McKale Center wearing his Arizona 1986 College World Series championship ring. He prefers that over his 2019 Washington Nationals World Series ring, which he says is so large it requires "three fingers."
A week away from coaching his first game at his alma mater, Hale says, "we have a great roster."
Hale isn’t one to exaggerate. He’s one to work. When he was hired as the Arizona Diamondbacks manager in 2015, his former boss with the Oakland A’s, Bob Melvin, said: "In spring training, Chip’s up a little after 4 in the morning and at the ballpark before 5. You never have to worry; everything’s taken care of when he’s here."
If Hale says "great roster," you nod. In baseball, Chip Hale knows what the goods are, at any level.
At Arizona, Hale played with future major leaguers Joe Magrane, Gil Heredia, Tommy Hinzo and Dave Rohde.
When he completed his big league career with the Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Dodgers, Hale was hired to manage the rookie league Missoula Osprey, followed by managerial terms with the Double-A El Paso Diablos and Triple-A Tucson Sidewinders.
Incredibly, Hale managed 84 players who reached the major leagues. Not all 84 names may be familiar, but among those 84 were ex-Wildcats Alan Zinter, Keoni DeRenne, Damon Mashore, Colin Porter and Tony Clark, as well as Amphitheater High School's Erubiel Durazo, CDO’s Scott Hairston and former first-round draft pick Casey Daigle, who became more famous for marrying Jennie Finch than reaching the big leagues.
Hale also managed future big league managers Andy Green, Scott Servais and Craig Counsell.
So when Hale says "great roster," you pay no attention to those who questioned his hiring last summer by saying Hale has never recruited or put a college baseball team together.
Chip Hale, seen high-fiving Nationals ace Max Scherzer in 2019, spent his life in the minor and major leagues before agreeing to become the Wildcats' head coach last summer.
Ask UA associate head coach Dave Lawn, who has spent 22 years coaching and recruiting in the Pac-12, reaching the College World Series with USC, Cal and, in 2016 and 2021, under Hale’s predecessor, Jay Johnson.
"He is definitely the right guy," says Lawn.
Arizona has hired seven baseball coaches in 107 years and it hasn’t missed yet. Pop McKale was a 28-year-old high school coach. His Arizona teams went 304-118. The only head coaching experience of his successor, 43-year-old Frank Sancet, was in high school.
When Sancet retired with a record of 831-275, he had coached Arizona to the national championship games of 1956, 1959 and 1963. He was replaced by Jerry Kindall, 38, a former big-league infielder, whose only experience in coaching was as an assistant at his alma mater, Minnesota.
Kindall won NCAA championships in 1976, 1980 and 1986 and, along the way, recruited Hale, who turned down an offer to enroll at the Naval Academy to play in more games than anyone in UA history.
All they had in common was winning. Hale won’t be the same coach at Arizona that he was with the Mets or Tigers or A’s or Diamondbacks. At 57, he has changed some things.
"In the college arena, I stick to, 'What can he do now?'" said Hale. “In the pros, it was, 'What can he do in three years?'"
Hale isn’t much like his predecessor, Jay Johnson, now at LSU. Johnson made coaching his life. His approach to coaching college baseball was about the same as getting into a submarine and not coming to the surface for months and months and months. All-in, all day.
It worked for Johnson and Arizona, which reached the College World Series in 2016 and 2021.
Hale has more of a life outside of baseball. He and his wife, Judy, a Tucsonan, have three grown children. He does not always wear baseball gear, as Johnson did. During the UA’s recent baseball alumni weekend, Hale showed up wearing cowboy boots.
He can kick back when necessary.
Sophomore pitcher TJ Nichols, the UA’s likely No. 1 starter, said Hale’s approach is "more of a relaxed way."
Hale is a superior communicator. Organized. Engaged. A teacher. It’s unlikely any head coach in college baseball can match his on-field résumé.
Hale didn’t leave his big-league knowledge behind. He has been quick to implement MLB-type analytics to college baseball; Arizona recently became one of 20 NCAA teams to sign a contract with TruMedia, a data analysis firm that was first used by last year’s College World Series champions, Mississippi State.
"It’s the same stuff I used at the major-league level," said Hale.
Every pitch at every UA practice is monitored by TrackMan, a doppler-radar device that provides data on everything from a pitcher’s vertical release point to the spin rate of each pitch.
Why wouldn’t an elite high school prospect want to play at Arizona? It has a tradition of success dating 100 years that few colleges can match, with four NCAA championships and 83 MLB players, and now a head coach who has played and coached successfully at every level from the Pac-12 to Game 7 of the 2019 World Series.
The UA's facility, Hi Corbett Field, is one of the five or 10 best in college baseball.
In 2006, Hale managed the Tucson Sidewinders to what some considered the greatest season in Triple-A history. The Sidewinders went 91-53. Hale’s roster included 15 players who reached the big leagues.
Now, 16 years later, Hale is back in Tucson. It wouldn't be a surprise if someday soon he is being fitted for another national championship ring.
