All the quotes are from the athletic department.
Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades
Opening statement…
“Good morning. What an unbelievable day. Certainly, it’s a great day for Mizzou Baseball. We’re extremely excited. We’re looking forward to some great years ahead in terms of this program and certainly winning championships. On behalf of Chancellor Foley, he couldn’t be here today but he’s certainly excited to meet Coach Bieser and excited about our baseball program. I want to recognize Coach Jamieson for a great 22 years. I want to thank him for everything he has done for this program. We talk about developing young people and Coach Jamieson did that extremely well. Also with us today is Coach McArtor. He was the head coach here for 21 years. I want to thank him for all his help as he was a part of the search process. Tim Hickman was also a part of the search process and serves as our sport administrator. Wren Baker and Brian White also helped in the process. All four of those individuals did a tremendous job. What excited me most about the process was the amount of interest in this opening. It was tough narrowing it down. We started with about 15-18 candidates and made a ton of phone calls to ‘college baseball people’ that we have relationships with. We finally ended up interviewing six people in person and brought it down to two finalists. We finally selected Coach Bieser. We couldn’t be more excited.”
“Why Coach Bieser? I think it starts with integrity. He’s a man of an incredible integrity. You talk to so many people who’ve intersected with him and the impact he has had on them. His time playing professional baseball, time at St. John Vianney High School and Southeast Missouri State University. His integrity is unbelievable. We believe philosophically that you can’t be great on the field unless you’re great off the field. I think Coach Bieser certainly shares that philosophy. The one thing that we continue to hear over and over again about him as a coach is that he got the student-athletes to do things that they thought they couldn’t ever do. They became better in all facets of life. His ability to identify and develop talent was certainly a part of it too. He’s a proven winner. That certainly speaks volumes. He’s certainly going to do that here.”
“He spent 13 years in Major League Baseball. I mean this as a compliment. He probably should’ve have only spent five years there. He worked hard, outworked everybody and overachieved in his 13 years. I think that’s a great accomplishment. I’ve been doing this for 16-17 years and have interviewed a lot of prospective head coaches. Steve is one of the smartest people that I’ve ever interviewed. He has great ‘intellectual horsepower’ and finds a way to get things done. Obviously, this job is an SEC job. It’s more than that as it’s also a Midwest job as well. You have to know the Midwest landscape and know where to recruit and build relationships. We think Coach Bieser certainly brings those capabilities to the table.”
“Finally, it was his passion for this job. This is his dream job. The way he spoke about being the head coach at the University of Missouri and his excitement for that. What it means to him certainly resounded big time to us. We are extremely excited to introduce our fourth in the last 79 years and overall 14th head coach of Mizzou Baseball, Steve Bieser.”
On how much he valued head coaching experience in potential candidates…
“You obviously value head coaching experience, but it wasn’t the ultimate criteria. If you look at my track record of head coaching hires, we’ve hired coaches with some head experience and some with not. I try not to let that take me down any certain path and keep a wide open mind. Certainly, it was a feather in Steve’s cap that he had been a head coach and successful as a head coach. It was more about his ability to develop a program. We can win here. There’s no question in my mind. We weren’t going to talk to anyone who didn’t think that they could win at Mizzou and in the SEC. We fully expect to win here.”
On what he can do to continue to improve the Mizzou Baseball program…
“We’re in the process of all of those discussions. Certainly with Coach Bieser and all of the candidates we discussed the future of Mizzou Baseball and what that entails. It starts with providing him the ability to put together a great staff. We need to take a look at the operational budget and making sure the budget is right. Make sure he has what he needs to recruit and find players. There’s certainly that commitment. We’ll also look at the facility and some short-term things. There’s been some discussion about the field surface here and if that’s something that we take care of immediately. We also want to look at the overall stadium. We’ll have more discussions of what will become a priority short term and long term.”
Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades
Opening statement…
“Good morning. What an unbelievable day. Certainly, it’s a great day for Mizzou Baseball. We’re extremely excited. We’re looking forward to some great years ahead in terms of this program and certainly winning championships. On behalf of Chancellor Foley, he couldn’t be here today but he’s certainly excited to meet Coach Bieser and excited about our baseball program. I want to recognize Coach Jamieson for a great 22 years. I want to thank him for everything he has done for this program. We talk about developing young people and Coach Jamieson did that extremely well. Also with us today is Coach McArtor. He was the head coach here for 21 years. I want to thank him for all his help as he was a part of the search process. Tim Hickman was also a part of the search process and serves as our sport administrator. Wren Baker and Brian White also helped in the process. All four of those individuals did a tremendous job. What excited me most about the process was the amount of interest in this opening. It was tough narrowing it down. We started with about 15-18 candidates and made a ton of phone calls to ‘college baseball people’ that we have relationships with. We finally ended up interviewing six people in person and brought it down to two finalists. We finally selected Coach Bieser. We couldn’t be more excited.”
“Why Coach Bieser? I think it starts with integrity. He’s a man of an incredible integrity. You talk to so many people who’ve intersected with him and the impact he has had on them. His time playing professional baseball, time at St. John Vianney High School and Southeast Missouri State University. His integrity is unbelievable. We believe philosophically that you can’t be great on the field unless you’re great off the field. I think Coach Bieser certainly shares that philosophy. The one thing that we continue to hear over and over again about him as a coach is that he got the student-athletes to do things that they thought they couldn’t ever do. They became better in all facets of life. His ability to identify and develop talent was certainly a part of it too. He’s a proven winner. That certainly speaks volumes. He’s certainly going to do that here.”
“He spent 13 years in Major League Baseball. I mean this as a compliment. He probably should’ve have only spent five years there. He worked hard, outworked everybody and overachieved in his 13 years. I think that’s a great accomplishment. I’ve been doing this for 16-17 years and have interviewed a lot of prospective head coaches. Steve is one of the smartest people that I’ve ever interviewed. He has great ‘intellectual horsepower’ and finds a way to get things done. Obviously, this job is an SEC job. It’s more than that as it’s also a Midwest job as well. You have to know the Midwest landscape and know where to recruit and build relationships. We think Coach Bieser certainly brings those capabilities to the table.”
“Finally, it was his passion for this job. This is his dream job. The way he spoke about being the head coach at the University of Missouri and his excitement for that. What it means to him certainly resounded big time to us. We are extremely excited to introduce our fourth in the last 79 years and overall 14th head coach of Mizzou Baseball, Steve Bieser.”
On how much he valued head coaching experience in potential candidates…
“You obviously value head coaching experience, but it wasn’t the ultimate criteria. If you look at my track record of head coaching hires, we’ve hired coaches with some head experience and some with not. I try not to let that take me down any certain path and keep a wide open mind. Certainly, it was a feather in Steve’s cap that he had been a head coach and successful as a head coach. It was more about his ability to develop a program. We can win here. There’s no question in my mind. We weren’t going to talk to anyone who didn’t think that they could win at Mizzou and in the SEC. We fully expect to win here.”
On what he can do to continue to improve the Mizzou Baseball program…
“We’re in the process of all of those discussions. Certainly with Coach Bieser and all of the candidates we discussed the future of Mizzou Baseball and what that entails. It starts with providing him the ability to put together a great staff. We need to take a look at the operational budget and making sure the budget is right. Make sure he has what he needs to recruit and find players. There’s certainly that commitment. We’ll also look at the facility and some short-term things. There’s been some discussion about the field surface here and if that’s something that we take care of immediately. We also want to look at the overall stadium. We’ll have more discussions of what will become a priority short term and long term.”
