Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt made it official and terminated baseball head coach Dan Spencer. Here is the official statement from Hocutt:
"Texas Tech has had a very strong tradition in baseball exemplified by our nine NCAA regional tournament appearances and our four conference championships," Hocutt said. "I expect all of our teams to compete nationally and win in every aspect. We will find the best man to lead our baseball program to Omaha."
Associate head coach Tim Tadlock has been named as the interim head coach and that a nationwide search would begin immediately to hire his replacement. Perfect Game's Kendall Rogers speculated that Tadlock could be the leading candidate considering the fact that Tadlock is one of the more highly respected assistant coaches in the nation and is known to be a dogged recruiter. Baseball America's John Manuel also thinks that Tadlock and New Mexico's head coach Ray Birmingham:
The most logical replacements are assistant coach Tim Tadlock and New Mexico head coach Ray Birmingham. Tadlock was lured away from league rival Oklahoma in November, played at Texas Tech for Spencer's predecessor, Larry Hays, and has head coaching experience in the junior-college ranks, having spent nine seasons leading Grayson (Texas) County JC. He led Grayson to back-to-back NJCAA national championships in 1999-2000 and posted a .774 winning percentage overall.
I still really wish that it had worked out for Spencer here at Texas Tech. I hate seeing people get fired so this isn't a day for celebrating for me, but I also want this program to win so I'm conflicted. I hope we can thank Spencer for his hard work and dedication because I can guarantee that one of the biggest reasons why Dan Law Field saw renovations over the last year was because of Dan Spencer motivating donors to see it through. Spencer had a huge part in that entire process.
[Note by Seth C, 05/21/12 12:17 PM CDT ] Earlier this morning, Rogers tweeted a blog post ($) that Texas Tech was attempting to put together a "super staff". I don't have a subscription to Perfect Game, but I also wanted to note that RRS.com's Chris Level tweeted the following:
Keep an eye on UT pitching coach Skip Johnson, a name to watch in the #TexasTech coaching search. Known Tadlock since they were kids.
— Chris Level (@ChrisLevel) May 21, 2012
If this does happen, then I'd be pretty darned happy and I guess this is a situation where Tadlock would be the head coach and Skip Johnson would be a co-head coach with Tadlock. Here's Johnson's UT bio and sure enough, Johnson and Tadlock both attended Denton High School.