1   Larry Cochell Position: Head Coach

There are many ways to measure the success of a collegiate head baseball coach - and Larry Cochell has spent the last 36 years of his life establishing the standard in every category. Although it is easy to point to Oklahoma's 1994 national championship as the crown jewel of his coaching career, even that accomplishment does not completely define the impact Cochell has had on the Sooner baseball program and the national collegiate baseball scene.

With a career record of 1,246-736-4 (450-281-1 at OU), Cochell is beginning his 13th season as the University of Oklahoma's head baseball coach ranked fifth on the list of wins by active Division I head coaches and 10th all-time. Cochell is also one of 25 coaches in NCAA history and one of only 11 active coaches with 1,000 career wins.

Following the 1990 season, Cochell undertook the task of continuing the tradition of excellence that is baseball at the University of Oklahoma. And in only 12 years in Norman, Cochell has returned OU to college baseball's elite with eight NCAA tournament appearances, three College World Series appearances, a national championship in 1994 and the inaugural Big 12 tournament championship in 1997.

With 450 Sooner victories, Cochell stands second all-time at OU behind Enos Semore (851 in 21 years) in career wins. He was the fastest coach at the school to reach the 400-win plateau. It also marked the second time in his accomplished career that he had racked up 400 victories at an institution as he amassed 428 wins in 10 seasons at Oral Roberts (1977-86).

In his 12 years at the helm, Cochell has guided numerous Oklahoma players to national recognition, including 13 players who achieved 18 All-America honors, four Freshman All-Americans and 12 players who turned in 14 all-district performances. On the conference scene, OU has produced 33 all-conference and 54 academic all-conference selections during Cochell's tenure.

Cochell's accomplishments at OU have been recognized on both the national and conference levels as he was honored with National and Big Eight Conference Coach of the Year accolades in 1994 after leading his squad to the national title.

With 19 career NCAA tournament appearances, including eight with OU, probably his greatest asset is his ability to build and sustain a winning program. He has proven that by being only one of two head coaches in collegiate baseball history to take three different schools to the College World Series.

Cochell's first Series appearance came in 1978 as he led Oral Roberts to its first and only CWS appearance to date. He made two more trips to Omaha (1988 and 1990) as the head man at Cal State Fullerton, but it was the fifth time that proved to be the charm for Cochell. Two years after his first trip to Omaha with the Sooners in 1992, his 1994 team tore through regional and CWS foes without a loss and came back with the school's first national championship since 1951. One year later, Cochell returned to Rosenblatt Stadium with his 1995 OU club - his sixth and most recent CWS appearance and OU's first consecutive CWS appearances since a string of five straight from 1972 to 1976.

It was during that march to the 1995 CWS - on May 27, 1995 - that Oklahoma handed Texas a 13-9 defeat in the Sooners' second game of the NCAA Midwest II Regional at All Sports Stadium in Oklahoma City. The win was significant because it gave OU momentum that would help the Sooners to two straight wins over Auburn, the regional championship and OU's second College World Series appearance in as many years. But the 9,657 in attendance had witnessed more than just another Sooner regional win - they had witnessed history. History, however, was almost lost in the shuffle. In the excitement of beating Texas and advancing in the regional, the fact that the win gave Cochell his 1,000th career coaching victory was relegated to little more than a footnote. Becoming only the 14th coach in NCAA history to reach the 1,000-win milestone, Cochell's initiation into an elite group that includes names like Dedeaux and Fraser was overshadowed by what his team had done.

A 1964 graduate of Arizona State and product of the Bobby Winkles' era at ASU, Cochell has been honored twice by Collegiate Baseball as National Coach of the Year. The first award came on the heels of Cal State Fullerton's 43-18 record and College World Series berth in 1988; the second followed OU's 8-0 run through NCAA postseason play en route to the 1994 national title.

The Lebanon, Ore., native began his coaching career in 1965 as a graduate assistant at Utah State, where he earned his master's degree. In 1967, Cochell embarked on his head coaching career at Emporia State, compiling a 70-45 mark in three seasons. He then moved on to take the helm at Creighton, compiling a two-year record of 49-28 before returning to the West Coast to take the reins of the Cal State-Los Angeles program. There he led CSLA to two NCAA regional appearances and a 117-25 record in five years.

In 1977, Cochell began a 10-year stay at Oral Roberts that included seven NCAA regional appearances and, in 1978, his first trip to the College World Series. After serving as athletic director during the last three years of his coaching tenure, Cochell left the Tulsa school as its all-time winningest coach (428-171-2) for a one-year stay at Northwestern. The Wildcats recorded a 23-20-1 mark in Cochell's only year in Evanston before Cochell went west again in 1988 - this time to take the head job at Cal State Fullerton. Under his guidance, Fullerton posted a 109-68 record and made two College World Series appearances in three years.

While the accomplishments of Cochell's teams provide one measure of his success, another measure can be found in the more than 100 of his players who have progressed to the professional ranks - including eight first-round draft selections - and the number of his assistant coaches who have emerged as outstanding coaches in their own right on the collegiate and professional levels.

Further evidence of Cochell's stature is provided by the honors bestowed upon him and the committees on which he has served. In 1988, during his tenure at Cal State Fullerton, he was honored by the school's faculty with a "Meritorious Performance and Professional Promise Award." He has served on the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee and as chairman of the All-America Selection Committee for the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA). Following the Sooners' national championship season of 1994, Cochell was tapped for the second time in his career by Collegiate Baseball as its National Coach of the Year.

Perhaps the best testament to the lasting impact Cochell can make on a program took place on April 23, 1996. Cochell and the Sooners were preparing for a game in Tulsa against Oral Roberts. Eight years prior, in 1986, ORU and then-head coach Larry Cochell were on their way to making their first College World Series appearance. Since then, Cochell had taken Cal State-Fullerton to two CWS showings and Oklahoma to three. There's usually something special for a team playing against a former coach who has since moved on to other opportunities - a desire to prove something, even a desire for revenge. But this day would be special for a different reason. As Cochell stood in the dugout opposite the one he patrolled eight years earlier, something unusual happened. Rather than being met with bitterness and resentment, Cochell was honored in a ceremony during which his No. 1 became one of only two jerseys to be retired by ORU.

One might think that the current ORU head coach would have found the situation a bit uncomfortable - his predecessor and current opponent being honored by his team. Perhaps this would have been the case if the coach had been anyone other than Sunny Golloway, a former Cochell assistant at Oklahoma. This example demonstrates everything that defines Larry Cochell: humility, even in the presence of two programs which owe much of their success to him; an endearing quality that transcends the boundaries of uniforms and competition; and a sincere interest in the development of his players and coaches that enables them to achieve success on their own beyond Sooner baseball.

With a bachelor's degree from Arizona State, a master's degree from Utah State and 24 hours of doctoral studies completed, Cochell is active with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Cochell and his wife, Fran, have two sons, Craig, a member of the 1991-93 Sooner squads, and Chad, a Sooner letterman from 1997-2000.