Rice fires baseball head coach José Cruz Jr.
Rice Athletics fired baseball head coach José Cruz Jr. on March 13, less than a month into the season. The baseball team is 2-14 and on a 10-game losing streak, losing three games to Yale over the weekend and Texas A&M - Corpus Christi on Monday.
“I do not take lightly the dismissal of a legendary Owl such as Coach Cruz,” said Athletic Director Tommy McClelland in a 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.”
Cruz, a Rice and Lovett College alum, had just started his fourth season as Owls’ head coach at the time of his firing. Cruz 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 conducted a nationwide search for Bloomgren’s replacement this fall before settling on former Davidson College head coach Scott Abell, and he will now lead a search for the university’s next baseball coach.
In the meantime, Parker Bangs will serve as the Owls' interim head coach. Bangs joined Rice baseball as the team’s pitching coach in June 2022.
"Rice Baseball remains one of the preeminent programs in the country,” McClelland said. “With the support of President DesRoches and our Board of Trustees, I am confident that we will hire a coach who will return this program to the place where it belongs, at the forefront of college baseball.”
Rice has more than 30 games remaining on its 2025 schedule. The Owls will face Houston Christian University on Friday at home to begin their first series with Bangs as head coach.
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