UALR calls on Norwood, OBU baseball rejuvenator
Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Sports/225627/
UALR has a new baseball coach, though it might be a little while before he officially gets started.
UALR Athletic Director Chris Peterson confirmed Monday he has hired Ouachita Baptist Coach Scott Norwood on Monday to replace Jim Lawler, who resigned last month.
Norwood is expected to continue coaching his team as it participates in the NCAA Division II national tournament on Thursday in Cleveland, Miss.
The 21 st-ranked Tigers (43-14 ) will take on No. 7 Southern Arkansas at 3 p. m.
UALR (13-32, 7-18 Sun Belt Conference ) finishes its season with games Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Arkansas State. The Trojans will still be coached by Lawler, who is 58-93 at UALR. The Trojans will miss the Sun Belt Conference Tournament for the third consecutive season.
“I’m definitely excited. I think it’s a great opportunity,” Norwood said. “One, it’s in a great conference. Two, it has a great administration that wants to see it succeed. That makes it a lot easier.”
Norwood informed his players on Monday afternoon at practice. He drove to Little Rock on Monday evening and met with the UALR players.
“We put a lot of thought into whether you announce it before [the OBU season ends ]. It’s a little uncharacteristic. But I felt in our situation, I wanted our program to have a face before the current team left for the summer,” Peterson said.
Norwood is in his fourth season at Ouachita Baptist, where he is 150-75. He is 281-138 overall in eight seasons, including stops at Sterling (Kan. ) College (105-45 ) and Mercyhurst (26-18 ) in Erie, Pa. He also spent time as an assistant coach at the University of Indianapolis.
“It’s been a pretty intense couple of weeks,” Peterson said. “We’ve had an enormous amount of interest in the position by both sitting head coaches and extremely qualified assistant coaches. We feel Scott Norwood will have the drive and passion for this job. He’s been a program-changer every place he’s been.”
Norwood guided OBU to a 26-27 record his first season after the Tigers had won 45 games the previous five seasons. It was OBU’s most successful season in 32 years. The Tigers won a school-record 31 games in Norwood’s second season and finished 50-10 last season, at one point winning 21 consecutive games.
“We’re going to win,” Norwood said. “These players have got to believe that. It’s happened everywhere I’ve been, and it’s going to happen here as well.”
The Division II South Central Regional is scheduled to wrap up Sunday. If Ouachita Baptist wins, the Tigers would advance to the Division II Championship on May 24-31 at Sauget, Ill.
“UALR wants to see me finish up with my team,” Norwood said. “Those kids deserve that. I told them that we are going to make every day count that we have left.”