June 13, 2008
By Vahe Gregorian
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
05/29/2008
Seven years after staring at the crossroads of his life, University of Missouri baseball coach Tim Jamieson has morphed into a monument to adaptability and resilience.
"He has an uncanny inner resolve," MU athletics director Mike Alden said.
Part of the reason Mizzou is in its unprecedented sixth NCAA tournament in a row after earning just three berths in the previous 22 years is that Jamieson had the fortitude to tell himself -- and Alden -- that the program needed a fresh approach.
"It's OK to change," said Jamieson, 48, casually speaking words that many coaches might find blasphemous. "There's always ways to do the same things differently."
But MU's breakthrough isn't just about what's different, such as a more defined and aggressive concept of pitching, a more refined and selective stance on hitting, and the trickle of success that led to better players being drawn to Mizzou.
It's also about what stayed the same: the core of the coach, who between a diet of multiple mini-meals and a gnawing burn to win remains constantly hungry.
"You can see that parallel," said pitching coach Tony Vitello, a DeSmet graduate and son of longtime DeSmet coach Greg Vitello, adding that for all the statistical improvements at MU, "to have that hunger to do is the most important thing."
Nothing symbolizes Jamieson's constancy like his tending to the very roots of the program from the time he took over 14 years ago, through the wobbly years where his job seemed in jeopardy, to the present as MU begins NCAA play against Mississippi on Friday in Coral Gables, Fla.
That's why he still can be found immersed in any number of groundskeeping capacities at Taylor Stadium: mowing grass, lining fields, aerating. It's ground so hallowed and personal to Jamieson that even his wife, Cindy, has been enlisted in the past to yank weeds, drag dirt with a tractor or work the raintrain.
"He's gotten down in the muck and the mire; he's taken that ground into his hands and turned shovels and gotten in the mud and gotten dirty and sweaty," said Jamieson's brother, Jeff, a St. Louis attorney, adding, "I've seen him literally come out of holes."
DIFFICULT TIMES
Jamieson perhaps never was in a hole as deep as the one he found himself in during May 2001, when his father, Dick, died, five years after his mother, Rosalie, passed away.
Suddenly, he was without his most essential audience.
"He lost that sounding board, that mentor," said Cindy Jamieson. "Tim has a lot of his qualities. He says a lot without having to use a lot of words."
Jeff Jamieson and younger sister Judi adored their father, too. But Jeff joked that as the "black sheep attorney" he didn't have the common ground Tim had with their father, a former Mizzou and St. Louis Cardinals assistant coach.
"My dad was my brother's hero," said Jeff Jamieson, Tim's elder by 18 months. "He's a clone of my dad. ... Fair, honest, straight shooter -- that's my dad and that's my brother."
So distraught was Jamieson during his father's decline and death from cancer at 63 that he wondered whether he could keep coaching. Others wondered on his behalf: That season was MU's fifth in a row without reaching postseason play, and a year later the Tigers fell to 24-29, leaving many speculating about his job security.
Among them was a parent at a preschool attended by the Jamiesons' children, Mickey and Ty, who asked Cindy Jamieson in front of the boys what was going to happen after Tim got fired.
"(The boys) were afraid we were going to be homeless," Cindy Jamieson said, laughing. "We explained that, 'Hey, your dad and I both have college degrees. We'll be fine.' And in the process of explaining it to them, we were kind of talking ourselves into that, too."
After the 2002 season, Alden, Jamieson and associate athletics director Gene McArtor -- the winningest coach in MU baseball history and one of Jamieson's mentors -- met to discuss the program.
But it was Jamieson, not Alden, who initiated what might have been awkward discussion about the future.
"I told Mike, 'You won't have to come to me; I'll come to you if this continues to be the trend,'" Jamieson recalled saying. --"'If I can't do this better than the way I'm doing it, then I'm not going to want to be in this job.'"
Noting that Alden is "much more supportive than he's given credit for," Jamieson added, "Mike and I still talk about that (talk). That in many ways was a turning point, not so much to him as it was to me."
THE ROAD TO SUCCESS
Giving roots a chance to grow and seeing them flourish, of course, are different matters. But Jamieson was reinvigorated with a new sense of energy and urgency, which extended from spending more quality time with his family to taking care of himself better physically to sharpening his philosophies on the field by visiting successful colleagues.
"You either needed to do it, or you needed to get out," he said. "I think I made the right choice."
At the same time, forces that had seemed to work against MU began to turn for it. After a generation of the school being woefully behind in facilities and budget, a $2.1 million stadium enhancement in 2000 began to reap recruiting benefits.
So did being part of the rugged Big 12, which before only seemed to accentuate MU's combination of budgetary and geographical liabilities.
"The timing was right," Jamieson said. "I came out of my funk, and we started benefiting from the stadium. The program started to get more help, and the Big 12 was a boost in the arm: It's very harsh, but it forced us to make some changes that we needed to make and do some things we needed to do."
With 18 new players in 2003, MU finished fourth in the Big 12 and commenced the procession of six consecutive 30-win seasons and NCAA appearances, including advancing to the 2006 NCAA Super Regional.
That season was a highlight in more ways than one for Jamieson, who has had 40 players drafted. He also coached Max Scherzer (Parkway Central), who in 2006 became MU's first first-round pick in the major-league draft.
After the Tigers won the regional in Malibu, Calif., Jamieson's sons rode on the team bus back to the hotel.
"It was one of the greatest things ever," Tim Jamieson said, laughing at the thought of his boys, now 10 and 9, back in the bus with the team. "Those are moments, no matter how much I'm away, they can't have that in any other job."
Not that it's downhill now, but MU's success is begetting more success. So much so that Jamieson and his tight-knit staff have to be conscious of how to maintain a blue-collar attitude as they attract blue-blooded recruits, reminding players at every turn that MU's foundation lies in out-conditioning its opponents and doing more with less.
"This year's recruiting class was ranked 11th by Baseball America; (recruits have) never known Missouri to do anything but good things," Vitello said. "There actually came a time where we had to sit these guys down and say, 'Hey, listen, here's a little history lesson. This is what it's about here, and this is what it's come from. And if you kind of lose your roots, you're going to lose the success that's in line here.'"
HERE TO STAY?
Now, any speculation about Jamieson's job status focuses only on one aspect of it: Might he ever want a different one?
Mizzou still has the smallest budget and stadium in the Big 12, and Jamieson's salary of around $150,000 is near the bottom of the league. It's a long way removed from just a few years ago, when he was making half as much and several Big 12 assistants were paid better. Still, other programs could offer more money and better facilities.
"You want to be wanted; you want other people to notice what you're doing," Jamieson said. "But it still comes down to quality of life, what's best for your family. And the players here, it means a lot to me to be part of their lives no matter what. If I were to go somewhere else, to a certain degree you lose that when you start over again."
So for the foreseeable future, anyway, don't expect Jamieson to be cultivating any grounds other than the ones he's been tilling for 14 years.
"Don't ever let go of that image," Alden said. "There's a guy who takes pride in every blade of grass out there, every detail. That's part of his DNA."
DNA that's now an indelible part of Mizzou.
