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Determined. Aggressive. Champion. These three words are accurate descriptions of a man hired by Texas Tech to rebuild its baseball program and return the Red Raiders to the national spotlight. These three words are the heart and soul of Dan Spencer. However, the measure of a coach is not the words used to describe himself but instead the characteristics he installs into his team. In his first season as head coach in 2009, his team showed determination and aggression and now he will use that mentality to lead the Red Raiders down the road to becoming champions. Hired in the summer of 2008 to replace a Texas Tech legend in Larry Hays, Spencer embraced the challenge and wasted no time in building a foundation for the Red Raider Baseball program in which to build a championship contender. Prior to his taking over the reins, Texas Tech had missed out on the Big 12 tournament in each of the last two years and posted last place finishes in the conference both of those seasons. Spencer's first squad defied all the preseason prognostications and he led the Red Raiders to a seventh place finish in 2009 and a return to Oklahoma City for the conference tournament. In their return to Oklahoma City, the Red Raiders posted an upset win over Missouri and found themselves just one win away from the championship game. When hired back in 2008, he became just the eighth head coach in school history joining E.Y. Freeland (1925-27), R. Higginbotham (1928-29), Bettie Feathers (1954-60), Berl Huffman (1961-67), Kal Segrist (1968-83), Gary Ashby (1984-86) and Larry Hays (1987-2008). He joined Gary Ashby as the only two head coaches in school history that spent their college playing careers at Texas Tech as he lettered in 1985-87. Spencer, 44, rejoined the Texas Tech Baseball family back on July 2, 2007 when he was named associate head coach on the staff of former head coach Larry Hays. He spent the 2008 season in that role where he coached the pitchers and catchers and headed Tech's recruiting front. His 2008 pitching staff produced two top-10 round MLB draft picks in juniors Zach Stewart and James Leverton, both of which had never been drafted prior to this season. Stewart was taken in the third round of the draft by the Cincinnati Reds while Leverton was taken in the eighth round by the Chicago Cubs. Prior to his arrival back at Texas Tech, he spent 11 seasons at Oregon State, the last three as associate head coach where he served as pitching/catching coach and recruiting coordinator. His pitching staffs during the last two seasons of his OSU tenure were instrumental in helping the Beavers become the first back-to-back College World Series Champions since LSU in the late 1990s. In those two seasons, his staffs compiled 3.41 and 3.48 cumulative ERAs while leading the team to 50-16 and 49-18 respective records. His group led the Pac-10 in ERA in both 2005 and 2006 while his bullpen helped pave the way to back-to-back national titles by contributing 20-plus saves in both 2006 and 2007. Under his leadership, the Beavers had three pitchers and one catcher named to All-America teams and seven drafted in the top 10 rounds of the MLB Draft. Eddie Kunz, the ace of the 2007 staff, and catcher Mitch Canhan, the squad's leading hitter, were both first round draft selections in the 2007 MLB Draft. His collegiate coaching career began at the junior college level six years prior to arriving at Oregon State as he landed his first job as an assistant coach at Tacoma Community College in Tacoma, Wash., in 1991. After just one season in Tacoma, he picked up his first head coaching position as he took over the program at Green River Community College in 1992. While at Green River, he compiled a record of 131-67 between 1992 and 1996. He and his wife, Susie, have three children: Wade, Logan and Elizabeth. |
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