2 Days 'til Aggie Baseball: One-on-One with director of ops Jason Huthcins

It’s that time of year! The Texas Aggie baseball team is set to open up the 2022 season on Friday against Fordham at Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park. We're counting down the days with our 2022 Aggie Baseball Preview Series.

Serving as Texas A&M's Director of Baseball Operations since 1998, Jason Hutchins is now working for his third head coach as Jim Schlossnagle takes over in Aggieland. Hutchins spoke to TexAgs about the transition and what Schlossnagle's vision for the program looks like.

Key notes from Jason Hutchins interview

• The difference has been a great change. Coach Schlossnagle came in, and I’ve known him for a while. His big thing is let’s try to get the culture back in this program, get the program where it needs to be and built from the recruiting up. He started by hiring unbelievable coaches, unbelievable staff with Chuck Box. It has been a great, easy transition. I think Schloss’ big plan is to make everything great, and that’s from the facilities, the field and the locker room. I don’t mean ‘great’ by making it bigger or better or constructing something often, which is all in the plans. I mean it by how you do anything is how you do everything. That is where I see the biggest change in the program is that the guys are buying into it, whether it's in class, on the field, in the training room, in the weight room. Everything they do, they do 100 percent.
   
• I laugh. When I first started, my job was to help coach Mark Johnson type his letters because he had a typewriter and wouldn’t use a computer. I'd help set up travel, pass out meal money and help with camps. It has grown. Now, I not only run the camps, do the travel, serve as a liaison to the athletic director and baseball group but help with daily practice organization, ordering equipment, setting things up. In the fall, it's about trying to get all the equipment ready for the guys, get their lockers set up, organize practice and put it together with coach Box and let it run. Then get ready for camps in the winter. As soon as the ABCA is over, we have to get ready for official team practice. We’ve got travel, recruiting, camps. It's a fun busy because you're getting to play baseball. You have the fun of recruiting the guys, getting them on campus and watching them grow in the fall, getting strong, bigger and making adjustments. In the spring, you get to sit back and enjoy the wins and enjoy watching them have fun and competing and maturing over time.
   
• At first, I was worried about it because we brought in a lot of young guys. We brought in some 18-year-olds and some 24-year-olds. That's really hard to mix them. Coach Schloss and Nate Yeskie, Nolan Cain and Michael Earley did such a great job early with the early meetings and the early workouts of preaching that we’re all in this together. It doesn't matter if you're a freshman or a senior, there is no seniority. We're going to go through this grind together. I've seen this team more than a lot of teams come together, and I think that’s attributed not only to the coaching staff but players like Micah Dallas, Troy Claunch, Jacob Palisch. Then some freshmen like Ryan Prager and Ty Hodge. There is just so many guys who you can go into that have a feel like they have a stake in this team to where they’re willing to speak up. That’s what makes it easy.
   
• It has been amazing. I have been here 26 or 27 years. To watch the development, and there has always been good baseball, even when there was just one high school. With select baseball and the Twelve organization coming in here and growing it and the addition of College Station High School, it’s amazing the amount of players that are at those two high schools. Then you can go right across Texas and University, and you've got Bryan and Rudder. They're putting together great players as well. What's neat for me and my son and daughter, who just graduated from College Station High School, is that I got to watch all of these guys play and grow up since they were nine and 10-years-old. Now I’m seeing them in an Aggie uniform, in the locker room, in the weight room. It's just crazy to me. That's probably my favorite part: Seeing the players that have grown up in this community, always wanting to go to Texas A&M, and then finally, their dreams here and grow and mature.
   
• To me, outside of the coaching and the recruiting, which is huge, Jeremy McMillan is the biggest part of all the success for our program. Guys come in, and in high school, you're 175 pounds or 160 pounds. You have some strength, and you have some talent. What coach Mac does is he turns these guys into athletic baseball movers. It's not like they're football strong or basketball jumpers. They're just baseball players, and he does a great job working with Courtney, who is our team dietician. It’s amazing to see the team transformation where a Nathan Dettmer can come in at 185 pounds, and by the end of last year, he's 218 pounds. Ryan Hendrix came in many years ago at 180 pounds and left at 230 pounds. It wasn't overweight. It was baseball strength and weight. You see the way gains in velocity and how hard they hit the ball, how well they get their turns around the bases and how fast they run. McMillan to me has the biggest impact on our program.
   
• I would say Mondays are usually my busiest day of the week during the season, and it’s funny because that's our off day. Usually, I'm either getting back from a weekend series or we just finished one at home. The players get that day off. Most of the coaches will come in during the morning, watch video and get ready for that Tuesday game and do whatever they have to do, then leave. Well, I'm getting ready for the Tuesday game and then the travel for the team coming in or our travel. I've done it long enough now that I have a system down. As long as there are no curveballs thrown, I can get through it.
   
• I played here in 1992 and ‘92. Coming from California and never seeing this place... I was recruited, came sight unseen, and I thought it was the best ballpark in the country. That was back in 1991-92. I’m telling the players in 2009-10 when we were talking about getting the expansion. They were like,  “Yeah, we need it.” I was like, "You have no idea. This is the nicest ballpark ever." And then they built Blue Bell. I was like, "Wow, this is amazing." Now the new expansion plans, and we're still going through the initial phases, but the plans for it... I think with the 12th Man and Bryan-College Station and all the students at Texas A&M, there is no reason why we can’t be like Mississippi State with 10-12,000 or 14,000 fans at a weekend series for a game. As you know, we have an unbelievable donor base and backing. Our marketing department does an unbelievable job, and with the athletic department’s support, I know they're going to build us the best ballpark. And as long as we keep doing our part and putting great players on the field, it's going to be an amazing, amazing atmosphere.