By ROBERT CESSNAOMAHA, Neb. -- You can't blame A&M baseball coach Rob Childress for being a little giddy. He's living the dream.
During Friday's press conference at the College World Series, the fastest-talking coach in America had a couple of slips of the tongue. He demoted himself to an assistant and made first baseman Jacob House a relief pitcher. A&M football coach Mike Sherman and women's basketball coach Gary Blair have been known to alter a name or two, but typically not rapid-fire Rob, who is a sports writer's dream on deadline. He can deftly summarize a three-hour baseball game in less than 30 seconds. And if his team didn't play well, he'll be brutally honest. The guy just doesn't mince words.
That's why Friday's slip-ups weren't gaffes, they were simple mistakes of passion. Childress is loving every moment of his first trip to the CWS as a head coach. He had talked about getting to Omaha since he was hired six years ago. And making three trips as Nebraska's pitching coach only whetted his appetite. He knows how special these moments are.
And so do the approximate 1,000 smiling Aggies who have joined him. They'd last been to Omaha six years ago, when Childress was hired, and it's really been more than just a 12-year itch for most of them. A&M is 2-8 at the CWS and what many considered the program's best team, the 1989 squad, didn't even make it to Omaha. You have to be lucky and good to get to Omaha.
No wonder Childress had a few slips. He's been talking about his team's accomplishments seemingly 24/7 to anyone who would listen. Six Nebraska radio stations requested interviews. It would have been easy to pick and choose, say, two or three, explaining there wasn't enough time. Childress did them all. That's in addition to all the ESPN requests along with all the requests from newspapers including the Lincoln Journal Star and Omaha World-Herald.
He's not on edge -- actually, far from it. Some say they've never seen him calmer.
He's at ease because his team has done everything he's asked. It shared the Big 12 regular-season title, won the league tournament, grabbed the College Station Regional and Florida State Super Regional, each time handling adversity. This team has proved its worth, which in turn has been a ringing endorsement for Childress' coaching and for the baseball program overall.
That's why on Saturday afternoon, at the end of practice before the biggest game of his career, Childress was smiling, poking fun at the attempted mohawk haircut by relief pitcher Steve Martin, saying it needed some work to be considered in the same league as House. Would that be reliever House or first baseman House?
Robert Cessna's e-mail address is robert.cessna@theeagle.com
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