Out with the old, in with the new

Baseball fires Cruz, hires Pierce in ‘unconventional’ mid-season restructure

By Kathleen Ortiz and Riya Misra     3/27/25 1:26pm

Rice Athletics fired baseball head coach José Cruz Jr. on March 13, less than a month into the season. The baseball team was 2-14 and on a 10 game losing streak at the time of his firing. Just days later, Rice welcomed baseball veteran David Pierce to fill Cruz’s seat.

“I do not take lightly the dismissal of a legendary Owl such as Coach Cruz,” said Athletic Director Tommy McClelland in a March 13 statement. “However, I came to the decision that it was in the best interest of our student-athletes and our baseball program to make a coaching change now while there is so much of the season remaining.” 

Such a drastic mid-season restructure is “unconventional,” McClelland said in a March 17 statement announcing Pierce’s hiring. 

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“As soon as Coach Pierce and I came to an agreement that he would be our next head coach, he expressed his strong desire to start immediately,” McClelland continued.

This job is a homecoming for Pierce, who worked at Rice from 2003 to 2011 under the late Wayne Graham. In 2003, Pierce helped Graham lead the team — including Cruz’s younger brother — to their first and only national title.

Pierce got started just four days after McClelland’s announcement, coaching his first series at Florida Atlantic University on March 21. The team went 1-2 in their conference opener. Pierce’s first home game with the team will be today at 6:30 p.m.

“Like I told the coaching staff, I’m coming in to help,” said Pierce in his introductory press conference on March 19. “I’m not coming in to be any kind of savior. I’m here for support. I’m here to be an extra set of eyes and do everything we can to right the ship and do whatever we need to do to advance.”

Cruz, a Rice and Lovett College alum, had just started his fourth season as Owls’ head coach at the time of his firing. 

Cruz — once hailed as the university’s “Centerfield Messiah” — played for Rice under legendary coach Wayne Graham from 1993 to 1995, where he was a three-time All-American and a member of the first Rice baseball team to make a regional appearance.

“Wayne Graham sold me on what Rice could become and he was right,” said Cruz after being hired as head coach in 2021. “It’s up to me and my staff to return Rice baseball to the position we worked so hard to build.” 

Graham, who died in September, led Rice to seven College World Series trips and a national title in 2003. Cruz was unable to bring Rice baseball a winning season as he attempted to follow in the footsteps of his former coach, finishing his tenure with a 63-126 record.

Cruz’s firing is the third major dismissal made by McClelland since he joined Rice in August 2023. 

This fall, he dismissed football head coach Mike Bloomgren with four games remaining in the season. Last March, he dismissed men’s basketball head coach Scott Pera at the conclusion of the season.

McClelland appointed pitching coach Parker Bangs to be the interim head coach while he conducted the search for a new coach. Bangs joined Rice baseball as the team’s pitching coach in June 2022. He coached five games for the Owls, with a record of 2-3 before McClelland announced Pierce’s hiring.

“I want to thank Parker Bangs for his leadership as our interim head coach during this transition,” McClelland said in a statement. “He provided a calming presence during a challenging time and remains an important part of the coaching staff.”

Pierce went 295-162 in his eight-year tenure at the University of Texas Austin, leading the team to three appearances in the College World Series. 

He was fired in June 2024 after a “dissatisfying end to the season” according to the Daily Texan. Two months later, he joined Texas State University as an assistant coach, where he worked until last week. 

Pierce has previously head coached teams at Sam Houston State University and Tulane University, the latter of which he led to their first NCAA championship in a decade.

“I think we’re in a position now to really take a look at anything that’s happened in the past and just put it behind us, good and bad,” Pierce said at his press conference. “It’s a new era. We’re going to start fresh and we’re going to start fresh together.”

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