The Tech program is so far beyond the program I saw forty years ago that it's a completely different thing. The field then was about high school caliber and one just walked up to watch a game. The players practiced on hard pan dirt in 25 degree weather and 30 MPH wind in down jackets.
Rip Griffin donated a bunch of money and got the Red Raiders a real stadium and some other facilities, like indoor practice capability for harsh Lubbock winters. Then Kirby Holcutt was hired as A.D. and he hired Tim Tadlock who turned the program from an also-ran into a power.
Tadlock is a master of player development, which is what's needed to pull a program up from the bottom. Now, with the Red Raider's success, Tech is starting to see better recruiting which will hopefully keep us in the mix for Omaha for some time to come.
With men's T&F natty, men's basketball national runner-up, baseball, and Tech's continuing national dominance of meat judging, it's a golden age of Texas Tech sports......well, except for football.
The Texas Tech story is very similar to the LSU story. Before Skip Bertman became the coach, LSU baseball was really nothing. They sold tickets to the games, but the only people in the stands were our friends, girl friends, relatives, etc. The year before Skip arrived, LSU sold three season tickets. Three. There weren't dressing facilities for visiting teams. The coach's office was in the basketball arena.The coach my freshman year doubled as a football equipment manager.
Now they draw 10,000 or more for midweek games against primarily in-state schools.
If I hadn't been there from the beginning of the Skip Bertman era, andif you'd have told me back in 1982 (my senior year) that LSU would eventually have a major college baseball program that would win six CWS championships, I'd have laughed out loud and asked for some of what you were smoking. The bottom line is that great coaches like Skip and Coach Tadlock can buck the odds and build a perennial winner at any school. It takes vision and a whole lot of elbow grease.
