Texas' all-star roster of head coaches can make the Longhorns winners in the SEC | Golden

Chris Del Conte has assembled an all-star team.

At a school known for producing great athletes, the Texas athletic director has a roster of head coaches that's among the deepest in America. One that’s fully equipped to make a real ruckus in the SEC.

“I think when you’re at the University of Texas, you have to have coaches who have won, been there before, want to win championships and understand what it takes,” Del Conte told me Friday. “I think having a collection of coaches that have all won or competed for championships in every sport is vital because you can learn from each other.”

To that end, he's doing everything possible to make sure Texas' coaches are prepared to meet some Olympus-level expectations on campus and beyond. He’s building new facilities, supporting their efforts in the increasingly expensive transfer portal era and even doing some team building this summer.

“He’s bringing such talented leaders of our student-athletes together,” UT President Jay Hartzell said at the introduction of baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle on June 26. “It’s making this a special place at a special time.”

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Del Conte, his coaches and closest advisers gathered for a two-day retreat at the home of longtime UT athletics supporter Bill Duvall last week and exchanged ideas and coaching concepts between a great spread and good cheer.

The Horns are officially inside the storm that is the SEC, and people who are paid to win with no excuses all sat together and shared ideas about their goals and the commonalities that come with coaching at a major university, along with the accompanying pressure. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was also on hand to commiserate with the newest roster of coaches in a league whose winning reputation precedes it by a country mile.

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Del Conte enlisted the services of guest speaker Kevin Carroll, an author who travels the country making motivational speeches and empowering groups to reach excellence.

Carroll and colleague Dr. David Yeager, a UT professor and behavioral psychologist, met with the coaches and conducted what Carroll said was some robust discourse about dealing with pressure as coaches and how to better equip the athletes to do the same. He reminded those in attendance that athletes are a reflection of their coaches, a fact that is sometimes overlooked in the zest to win.

“It’s very different times having to navigate a lot of things with your student-athletes,” Carroll added. “So how do we better equip coaches to meet them where they are and to add more tools and more confidence to communicate effectively with them?”

Yeager, whose book "10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People" will drop Aug. 6, spoke about the process of building young people's confidence without having to break them down.

The presentation centered on not only how coaches relate to players in today’s age, but also dealing with challenges young people face with the distractions that come with social media while trying to excel in college sports' pressure cooker.

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"You look at the great coaches, and the first thing they do is connect with the kids," Yeager said. "They give them dignity and respect and treat them as more than numbers on a stat sheet. After they do that, then they kick their butts a bit and push them to their limits. But you don't just show up then tear a kid down."

Women's basketball said the free flow of ideas was invaluable for his program and the coaches as a whole.

“We all support each other and each’s other teams,” he said. “The best part was sitting around at nighttime after dinner and sharing ideas, talking about what you do with your sport and how you do it. So many winners, so many championships in one room. So many great people.”

Football can push this coaching staff to new heights

All eyes will be on football this fall because it’s football money that led the school to sever ties with the Big 12.

While coach Steve Sarkisian has come through on his promise to make football better with larger human beings and better recruiting, Del Conte continues to make these incredible hires to push this Texas renaissance even closer to a second golden era on campus.

The older ones among us remember the "Super Friends" cartoon series that was the highlight of our Saturday mornings for the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. We all loved Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman separately, but once they teamed up, there was no stopping the forces of good.

Texas hopes Sarkisian will ultimately become the coaching staff’s Man of Steel. If he’s as good as the last couple of years suggest, Texas will become the scariest athletic program in the country, and the SEC will increase its already gargantuan presence in the sport.

With that said, the Big 12 is probably viewing the Horns as the Legion of Doom because CDC appears comfortable wearing the black hat these days.

He doesn’t care, by the way. This is business, and he’s proved to be one of the absolute best at making moves and cutting fat checks.

Football has the momentum right now. The Horns went 12-2 and won a fourth league title with a 49-21 bludgeoning of Oklahoma State, and the fans even got into the act by nearly booing Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark out of AT&T Stadium.

Of course, a win over Washington and a fifth national championship with another win over Michigan would have been the ultimate flex, but the Horns did more than enough in the confidence-building department to close out Year 3 of the Sarkisian era.

Not to be overlooked, national titles in volleyball and rowing powered Texas to a third Learfield Directors’ Cup in four years — given to the most successful athletic department based on performance — so the Horns are entering the SEC fray with a mountain of confidence, albeit with their eyes wide open to the fact that half of the league’s institutions finished in the Cup's top 10. That includes Texas A&M, which finished sixth.

Del Conte's hiring salvo still resonating in the SEC

Speaking of the Aggies, Schlossnagle was among those in attendance at the retreat, one day before joining his former TCU boss Del Conte on the stage at the SEC Celebration.

Del Conte has been a cold-blooded killer in the figurative sense, as evidenced by a coup of sorts involving the Longhorns’ biggest rival, and if anything, it just adds to the growing expectation surrounding this blue blood’s entrance into the most powerful league in America.

No one flinched when women’s golf coach Laura Ianello came over from Arizona in early June, six years after leading the Wildcats to a national title, but SchlossGate took on a life of its own.

The Aggies thought they hated the Horns before. After what they can only describe as Schlossnagle’s betrayal, the meter is far past red-line levels.

Now that the Horns are officially in the SEC along with fellow new member Oklahoma, old rivalries have been reignited, including the long-simmering blood feud between these Texas schools.

When Del Conte crept past a Snook cemetery and into College Station to snag Schlossnagle one day after A&M’s loss to Tennessee in the College World Series title game —  he actually posted a pic to document what he knew would turn the college sports world on its ear — it was a reminder that the Horns will do whatever is necessary to win, especially with the revenue-producing sports that have been overshadowed over the past decade-plus by the Olympic activities such as volleyball, swimming, golf, rowing, track and field, and tennis that have brought home national championships.

Del Conte added a few million barrels of unleaded to little brother’s burning hatred for all things Bevo. Nabbing Schloss sent a clear message to the Aggies and the league: The Horns aren’t interested in blending in.

During the SEC Celebration last Sunday, longtime SEC personality Paul Finebaum said he had been asked by more than a few friends if he believed the Longhorns are ready for the SEC. That was before the Horns hired Schlossnagle.

“Texas answered that question when they put a stake in their biggest rivals’ heart,” Finebaum said. “They body-bagged their rival. That was an all-time move in letting your presence be known.”

While David Pierce was a fine coach, Schlossnagle is a sizable upgrade, one who has coached in the CWS seven times. His presence on campus bolsters an already formidable group of coaches who are all hell-bent on making a splash in the new league, as is their boss, who is covering every base in preparation for the upcoming SEC debut.

The pressure to win at Texas is obvious, but Schlossnagle also will have to return to the scene of what the Aggies believe is a crime against Reveille and humanity each time these teams hook up.

The great Billie Jean King said pressure is a privilege and the heat is about to amp up in this new league.

“People ask if we’re ready for the SEC and I can tell you, having been in coaching for over 40 years, there isn’t a group that’s more successful and more ready than this one," Schaefer said.

The Horns are walking into the SEC already feeling as if they belong. They will have to prove it on the field, the court, the course, the pitch, the track and the water.

And equally important, in the coach’s box.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas' all-star roster of head coaches can make the Longhorns winners in the SEC | Golden