Joe Urso’s 23 Years Coaching University Of Tampa Baseball Has Been ‘A Dream Come True’

Despite hitting as high as .317 in the low minors while displaying a knack for drawing a base on balls, Joe Urso sensed the numbers game would keep him from climbing the ladder in the Angels’ system.

That is why he met with Ken Forsch, the former 114-game winner and then the organization’s director of player development, to tell him that instead of drawing the short straw and perhaps being released, he would spend yet another season at Class A Lake Elsinore.

Typically, a player in his mid-20s toiling at Class A might best consider another mode of employment. That is what Urso had in mind, but still wanting to be very much a part of the game. He told Forsch that he did not mind returning to the California League affiliate where he could serve as an unofficial player-coach in 1996.

The plan worked. For one, Urso was able to remain in the Southern California town learning the coaching ropes while being close to the woman, Julie, who would become his wife. The change in job description also launched him on a path that has led to a remarkable collegiate coaching career at the University of Tampa.

“I could see that the numbers were beginning to build up against me, that I could be one of the next guys released,” said Urso, who hit .282 in 484 minor league games, all but 12 spread among three Class A affiliates. “So, I told Ken Forsch what I wanted to do. It was an easy move for him to allow me the opportunity go down (to Lake Elsinore from Double A Midland where he completed the previous season) instead of releasing me.”

A full-time coaching position opened in 1997, a season he spent with manager Tom Kotchman at Class A Boise. The following year, Urso was back in Lake Elsinore serving as the hitting coach. Then, in 1999, he became a 28-year-old manager when he took over the Angels’ rookie-level club in Butte, Mont. Before the short-season Pioneer League schedule began, he spent three months running extended spring training in Arizona. That went on for two years.

It was his year coaching with Kotchman, who served as the Tampa Bay area scout in 1992 when he recommended the Angels select Urso, which they did in the 49th round, that really made an impression.

“I learned so much being around him in the clubhouse and his desire to win every game,” he said of the now 68-year-old Kotchman, who is managing Boston’s Florida Complex League team and closing in on 2,000 career minor league wins. “For him to show up every day with that expectation to win was a great lesson. I also learned how to manage a bullpen, which has been our biggest thing at (UT).”

The opportunity to take his baseball career back to the University of Tampa, his alma mater, and in the city where he was born and raised, arrived in late 2000 after the previous manager, former UT player Terry Rupp, departed to take over at Maryland. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up, and one Urso thought would offer a stable lifestyle.

“We thought (UT) would be a better family job than the grind of the minor leagues,” said Urso, at the time a father to an infant, J.D., who is currently a senior shortstop at with the Spartans. “Back in those days when somebody was coaching professionally, if you did not have a big-league name, you have to be like Joe Maddon and coach in the minors 20-plus years to get your opportunity. The game has definitely changed since then, but I didn’t think that would be the best way to raise a family. I thought (UT) would be the best family job and, wow, was I right.”

Urso has led the program to the NCAA Division-II tournament all 22 seasons he has been at the helm, with five national championships. He has won more than 900 games and, at 52, seems as driven as ever to keep the good times rolling.

“It has been an amazing run and you pinch yourself sometimes,” said the former Spartans second baseman, who won two national titles and was a career .332 hitter while once holding the NCAA Division-II career mark for runs scored with 258. “The pressure to keep on top is real and you want to be the best every year. It is not just conference titles we’re talking about. You’re talking about the goal of winning national titles every year. It is not easy. At times, we have made it look easy with the run we have had, but it is obviously not easy to keep a program on top this long. I am really proud of what we have been able to do.”

Much of that pride derives from the fact that no less than 74 players, including nine in 2010, have been drafted by major league teams on Urso’s watch. He gives much credit to pitching coach Sam Militello, a former Spartans teammate and Yankees pitcher who has been with Urso the entire time at the university.

“It’s been a heck of a relationship for us to stay together for 23 years,” said Militello, whose 182 strikeouts in 1990 remain a Division-II single-season record, and who was a coach in Cleveland’s system when he reunited with Urso. “You just don’t see that in college athletics at all. However, the dynamic we have is something that is really special. Joe gives me the opportunity to be like a head coach. He listens to what I have to say and we greatly respect each other. We have been together so long that we know what each other is thinking and we know what each other is going to do. We still having a lot of fun doing it, which is probably the most important ingredient in our relationship.”

Urso and Militello, who spent parts of two seasons (1992-93) pitching for the Yankees, were teammates under Lelo Prado. Prado, currently the deputy athletic director at USF, about 10 miles from UT, won two national titles during his seven years coaching the Spartans before moving on to Louisville and USF. As with Kotchman, valuable lessons in running a team were devoured.

“I learned the family part from him,” said Urso. “During my four years playing for him, he treated me like his own son. The family atmosphere that he created is something that I try to do. I point to that as one of the major reasons for our success here.”

That family atmosphere begins with an open door.

“Sam and I took what we learned playing and coaching in professional baseball and brought it to college,” said Urso, who praised his coach at Tampa’s Plant High School, Jeff Vardo, for instilling life lessons. “We are players’ coaches in that our offices are open to the student-athletes every day. Many of them come in to hang out and talk. I tell them that I am going to treat them like men and I am going to demand the same back. The players really appreciate that and they respond well to it.”

Nothing is more pleasing to Urso than when former players return to campus to catch a game or visit his home to catch up and reminisce about their time together.

“Even though I chase titles, what I enjoy most is that a lot of players come back, and many of them come back with their kids,” he said. “That gives me the biggest measure of satisfaction, when they come back and visit my home, or at the field when their kids run around after a game. When you are building relationships like that, that tells me that they believe this is their Spartan family. That means we have done our job as coaches. This has been a dream come true.”

Especially since that dream is playing out where Urso once starred.

“I am a UT lifer, basically,” he said. “This program means everything to me. I preach it to my players, the pride I have in putting on the University of Tampa uniform and not taking it for granted.”