By ROBERT CESSNA
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- One of the greatest athletic seasons in Texas A&M history fittingly will end in Omaha. The Aggie baseball team took the baton from the national champion tracksters and ran laps around Florida State in an 11-2 victory Monday to win the super regionals and reach the College World Series.
A&M, which was unseeded because of a season-ending injury to starting pitcher John Stilson, proved the selection committee wrong in a big way. Fifth-seeded Florida State, seeking its 21st trip to Omaha, seemingly had the momentum coming off a 23-9 victory in Game 2, but A&M simply was the much better team.
A&M scored six runs in the first, which was more than enough for rested ace Michael Wacha. He effectively took care of business in Florida and the Aggies are headed back to the Midwest where the national championship season got under way with the women's basketball team beating Notre Dame in Indianapolis.
That run, though, capped a remarkable climb for that program from the Big 12's worst to the nation's best. The baseball team's return to the Midwest Mecca of the sport is much, much different.
Monday night's victory ended a frustrating slump. The Aggies hadn't been to Omaha since 1999.
A&M had underachieved in a program that for years was the school's second most popular until the Aggies discovered they could win in basketball. Reed Arena quickly became the place to be once football ended and baseball didn't help itself by missing the NCAA tournament five times and having a 16-16 record in the other six appearances hardly qualified it as a power.
A&M certainly has tradition in the sport. But when it took the field Monday night in the weekend's final super regional championship, there had been 37 other programs reach Omaha since A&M's last trip, though just getting to Omaha once every decade hardly qualifies anyone as a power. But the 20 programs which had made at least two trips to the CWS since A&M did have a case. The Aggies weren't a baseball power.
It didn't help that A&M couldn't advance past regionals the last two seasons, putting more pressure on the program and head coach Rob Childress. The popular Mark Johnson was fired after the 2005 season for not keeping the program at the championship level director of athletics Bill Byrne demanded.
Byrne's motto has been "Building Champions" since he arrived and leading the way has been the track program under Pat Henry, who won the men's and women's outdoor championships last weekend in Des Moines, Iowa, the third straight for each -- an NCAA first.
Baseball had won a pair of regular season championships in the Big 12 and a trio of league tournaments, but that paled when many of the state's other programs were ending seasons in Omaha -- Baylor (2005), Rice (2002-03-06-07-08), Texas (2000-02-03-04-05-09) and TCU (2010).
Childress, the former pitching coach at Nebraska from where Byrne came, had by far his best team capable of reaching Omaha with one of the nation's best trio of starting pitchers in Stilson, Ross Stripling and Wacha along with ace reliever Nick Fleece. Pitching and timely hitting led by Big 12 Player of the Year Tyler Naquin and freshman sensation Krey Bratsen helped A&M share the Big 12 regular season crown and claim the tournament title. But when Stilson was lost to a torn labrum the Aggies were snubbed and placed in the bracket with Florida State, hardly an ideal path to Omaha.
That, though, made winning that much more significant. This is not the end of a run, this could be the start of something bigger. Even the casual follower of baseball knows 1 for 12 isn't good, but it sure beats 0 for 12.
The beauty of reaching Omaha is all of A&M's past success will be relived, starting with the 1951 team that bounced back from a 21-4 loss to Arizona to win the District VI playoffs and was the first Aggie team to reach the CWS -- a team that, by the way, celebrated its 60th anniversary this year at an A&M home game.
What about some love for former head coach Tom Chandler, who took the 1964 team to the CWS and had his number retired this season along with Johnson? And the 1993 CWS team was pretty special led by pitcher Jeff Granger and outfielder Brian Thomas, a pair of All-Americans. You can even talk about the 1989 team that might of been the best team ever not to reach Omaha.
And of course ESPN will flash back to A&M's last CWS team, which reached Omaha with a 5-4 victory over Clemson on ninth-inning homers by Steve Scarborough and Steven Truitt. That backed up the relief pitching of Casey Fossum.
Olsen Field was rocking that day, one of many since that fine facility opened in 1978. How fitting that A&M make Omaha as Olsen Field is being turning into Blue Bell Park. The Aggies also get to christen the new palace in Omaha, TD Ameritrade Park.
The Aggies are proud of their baseball past, but can't wait for the future.
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