Aggie Flashback with former A&M baseball player Kyle Hawthorne

Key quotes from Kyle Hawthorne interview

“I hit the first Aggie homerun in Olsen. The team we were playing was USC and their cleanup hitter hit one in the top of the second. I hit mine in the bottom of the second.”

“I signed with Southwest Louisiana out of high school, which is now Louisiana Lafayette now. I spent a year playing there, but my heart was always at A&M. It was a situation where I didn’t want to tag along with my brother; I wanted to make my own name. So he was a senior when I was a freshman. He graduated, I went home for the summer and played in a league in Houston and got to meet a bunch of the A&M players. I made the decision that I wanted to be an Aggie over that summer and it was the best decision I ever made."

"Mr. Olsen was fantastic in supplying the funds to build Olsen Field. Most of the time, when we played in front of crowds, it was our parents and girlfriends mainly. Olsen Field opened it up for students to come out there. Whether it was to see baseball or get a good suntan, they showed up. Olsen didn’t have lights, so we would play most of our games in the day and that got the students. Back then, there were two stadiums that were of that type in Arizona and at USC. As evidenced by the new football stadium, we always want to be better than the other guys. It was a tremendous facility and USC agreed to come out and play us in the opening series, which made it even more special. That started the era of making baseball a top college sport."

"We used to play a double-header on Saturday instead of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was pretty much a given that we would go out and win on Friday and Saturday because of our pitching. The only way we’d lose was if we got shut out. It’s hard to describe. These days, a lot of teams run arms out there and have five or six guys that can hit 90 plus. Back then, you didn’t see many guys who could do that and dominate, but Mark Ross and Mark Thurmond were a couple that gave us an advantage to win Friday and the first game Saturday."

"(Thurmond’s) major league career ranks right up there with any Aggie. Since then, it’s difficult to find someone who has stuck around and pitched in a World Series game, other than Wacha. Thurman is right up there with any of them."

"This team is obviously an exciting group to go out and watch. I think Rob has done a great job of coaching, because it’s pretty difficult to lose two starters before it begins. In my opinion, he is limited in his starting position so he has had to throw together this bullpen that has done fantastic. I think they’ll go a little ways and they had a good series against LSU, even though they lost two out of three."

"(The SEC) has lifted up every sport, especially in baseball. It is like murderers row trying to go through these series and keep your head above water. South Carolina is down, but I’m scared to play them, because you never know what they’re going to do."