CORKY: Kindall elevated UA baseball to new heights

Interviewing for his first head coaching position back in 1971, Jerry Kindall discovered quickly that expectations weren’t exactly modest at the University of Arizona.

“We want a national championship,” the search committee told him. “Can you do that?”

“Well ... yes ... sure,” the 36-year-old former major league infielder replied.

He had no idea how.

And when he made the cut to the final three candidates, Kindall said “I was scared stiff they’d offer it to me.” When they did, he said “I was both terrified and elated.”

Three national championships, 681 victories and a quarter-century later, Kindall stepped down in 1996 after one of the most successful coaching careers in the history of college baseball.

The St. Paul, Minn. native, who’ll turn 75 on May 27, spoke Monday at the Southern Arizona Retired Coaches and Officials association at the Reid Park clubhouse in Tucson.

Victories and championships don’t begin to tell the story of Jerry Kindall. He is a man of tremendous integrity and faith. A smidgen of the respect held for Jerry is this: The Fellowship of Christian Athletes annually awards the Jerry Kindall Character in Coaching Award.

Kindall was was introduced Monday by Jim Wing, the man who served as his pitching coach with the Wildcats. “Of all the decisions I made in those 25 years, hiring ‘Winger’ was the best,” Kindall said.

That first staff also included hitting coach Mark Johnson, who went on to become head coach at Texas A&M for 21 years and is now the coach at Sam Houston State.

Jerry Stitt became hitting coach after Johnson left, then replaced Kindall as head coach when he retired in 1996.

Under Kindall, the Wildcats won the school’s first-ever NCAA championship in a team sport, in 1976. They repeated in 1980 and 1986.

Among the many players he sent to the major leagues were Terry Francona, now the manager of the Boston Red Sox, and Trevor Hoffman, who, as a relief pitcher with the Angels, became baseball’s all-time saves leader and who will almost certainly become the first Wildcat in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N.Y.

Kindall is not one to toot his own horn.

“Arizona was the best coaching job in the world before I got here, thanks to coach Frank Sancet,” he told the retired coaches and officials. “I tried hard not to mess it up.”

Kindall retired in Tucson. He lectures now on ship cruises with the Oceania Lines, accompanied by his wife Diane. Jerry’s first wife, Georgia, is buried in Tucson. She died in the late 1980s of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

“I’ve lived here 38 years and I can’t believe the blessings I’ve had in Tucson,” Kindall said. “I’m so much a Tucsonan that when I go back to visit Minnesota, I’m smart enough to never in the wintertime.”

In his early years at UA, Jerry said he felt “some resentment” in the community “because I hadn’t played here. I was an outsider.”

He said the area’s high school baseball coaches helped tremendously, reaching out in friendship. “They made me feel at home,” he said.

Retired bank executive Bud Grainger, a highly respected college umpire, was the first person to visit Kindall in his office at UA.

Also, the Hispanic community, well known in Tucson and Southern Arizona for its support of baseball, welcomed Kindall. Former Wildcat players, including All-Americans Gil Gonzales, Eddie Leon, Mike Paul and Dan Schneider, all helped the new coach feel wanted.

The Wildcat program took shape quickly with great recruiting, namely such players as Ron Hassey, Dave Stegman and Steve Powers.

Kindall was no stranger to the community. He had trained in Arizona as a rookie infielder with the Chicago Cubs in 1957. He had signed a pro contract after leading Minnesota to the 1956 NCAA championship. The Golden Gophers beat — who else? — Arizona for the national title.

“When I was traded to the Cleveland Indians in 1961, knowing that they trained in Tucson, I couldn’t wait to get here,” he said.

“After all these years, I love it here even more.”

The feeling is mutual. Among other honors, Jerry is an Arizona Sports Hall of Fame member and the stadium at UA bears both his name and the man he replaced, Frank Sancet.

Corky Simpson is a former Tucson Citizen columnist who writes a weekly column for the Green Valley News.