ASU Baseball: Willie Bloomquist hired as head coach, replaces Smith

(Photo: Susan Wong/WCSN)

Four days after firing Tracy Smith, Arizona State Baseball announced Sun Devil Hall of Famer and former MLB player Willie Bloomquist as its new head coach on Friday.

“Sun Devil Baseball is not ordinary in any way, it is extraordinary in many ways and is absolutely special,” Arizona State Vice President for University Athletics and Athletic Director Ray Anderson said Friday in a press conference via Zoom. “We needed to recapture the ASU glory day swagger and needed someone to bring us back to that level and had this program humming.”

Anderson said the hire of 43-year-old Bloomquist, who played for the Sun Devils under former head coach Pat Murphy from 1997 to 1999 and won Pac-10 Player of the Year in his final season, was about “giving the program back” to the fans, alumni and former players in order to elevate it.

“When evaluating the state of the program, in order to get it back, we have to give it back,” Anderson said. “In order to get back the energy, passion, commitment and love of ASU baseball, we needed to give ASU baseball back to those people.”

The time between the firing of Smith and hiring of Bloomquist was considered a quick turn.

“We needed to anticipate and prepare for certain scenarios,” Anderson said. “It was not anything that we did not prepare for and once it was clear that we needed to take action, we took action and that led us to the best fit for our program going forward.”

In his three-year career at ASU, Bloomquist batted .394/.489/.596 with 15 home runs and 176 RBI. He is also the only Sun Devil in history to record 100 hits in back-to-back seasons, and his career .394 batting average ranks third in school history.

“There’s a love and passion that is elevated when you’ve lived in this environment and culture and that applies to evaluating this position,” Anderson said. “Willie was the perfect candidate to lead us forward. He has that passion and culture and we’re very excited about him.”

Bloomquist was thrilled to be tapped as the person to lead the Sun Devils, and let his emotions express that.

“Putting on this jersey for me is very special and is to my entire family,” Bloomquist said. “I can’t wait to give back and share the knowledge I’ve learned over the years and give back to a program that’s been so good to me.”

Bloomquist was drafted by the Seattle Mariners out of ASU in 1999 and went on to have a 14-year career in MLB, where he batted .269/.316/.342 and played three seasons (2011-2013) with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Since 2016, Bloomquist has served as the Special Assistant to Diamondbacks President and CEO Derrick Hall, but has no experience coaching baseball at any level.

“When I evaluate it and you have a situation like Willie, who played professionally for 14 years with some fine organizations, he has been around some of the best coaching and managing that he has absorbed and he will be able to bring those skill sets here,” Anderson said. “What a head coach in baseball does more than anything is set the culture and the tone and the energy and the environment for excellence.

“I certainly believe Willie will overcome any so-called technical coaching that he may not have on his resume.”

The former Sun Devil will be up to the task of following Smith’s seven-year tenure as head coach, which saw him earn a record of 202-155 with four appearances in the first round of the NCAA Baseball Tournament.

“There’s a new era,” Bloomquist said he told players during his first meeting with them. “There’s a new chapter. Whatever happened in the past, we are now turning the page and something special is brewing.”

Bloomquist mentioned that while there was “plenty of talent in the clubhouse, things are going to change with the way we do things and there needs to be a [new] mindset.”

Early candidates rumored to be in the running for the job in addition to Bloomquist were ASU assistant coaches Michael Earley and Jason Kelly, Dallas Baptist head coach Dan Heefner and former Sun Devil baseball player Brett Wallace. The status of Earley and Kelly as potential assistant coaches under Bloomquist, in addition to assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Ben Greenspan, is still unclear.

Bloomquist did say that he would be “foolish” not to consider the three members of the current staff and that he is still evaluating his options, but also mentioned that he may bring some of his own staff with him.

“The staff that I have plans on bringing with me are guys that are certainly going to add to that ability to teach these young men and improve them and equip them for not only what we expect to do successfully at ASU but what we want them to do in their pro careers,” Bloomquist said.

After enduring a season in which it lost three starting pitchers to Tommy John Surgery, ASU went 33-21 in 2021 and qualified for the Austin Regional of the NCAA Baseball Tournament, only to go 1-2 in the double elimination competition after blowing leads of 4-1 and 5-0 to Fairfield in its first and last games of the weekend.

“It is my job to create a culture and atmosphere where these kids get better and improve,” Bloomquist said. “My goal going in is to create an environment where championship cultures create championships.”