STILLWATER – Oklahoma State head baseball coach Josh Holliday has seen a lot happen since the end of the season. The veteran head coach and former OSU player was on Sirius-XM and their “Big 12 Today” radio show Monday (July 25). The topics ranged from the end of the season, the draft where Oklahoma State had nine players taken, tied for third among all colleges. Of course, they covered the biggest draft story in Oklahoma State signee and Holliday’s nephew Jackson Holliday being take with the first pick overall. Then Josh told a story that I had never heard about his brother Matt and how he came close to competing for the Texas Longhorns quarterback job with Heisman Trophy winner Vince Young.
The Cowboys (42-22) were involved in an NCAA Regional in Stillwater that has been labeled by many since the end of the season as the most entertaining in the Road to Omaha this season. Arkansas eliminated the Cowboys 7-3 in the Regional Championship Game after the Cowboys four previous games in the weekend had an average of 29 runs scored per game.
“It was an offensive tournament, hard fought, tough way to end the season,” Holliday said. “We fought it as hard as we could for as long as we could. They (players) emptied the tank for us, and Arkansas got us. Tip the cap to them for coming to our ballpark and beating us, which is not easy to do.”
Holliday has now finished his tenth season as head coach at Oklahoma State. He has been head coach longer now at Oklahoma State three years longer than his father, Tom, had the job. His brother, Matt, is a volunteer coach on his staff and the entire family was able to be together over a week ago for the first night of the draft to see Jackson go first overall.
“We’ve had awfully good fortune for a long time,” Holliday added to the S-XM crew. “College sports has been our way of life. My parents moved here in 1977 and Oklahoma State and Stillwater have given us a home and a place to raise my brother and I. This is a great college town, but it is even a better town to raise your kids. It’s been wonderful to see what Jackson’s high school experience has been like. They moved here when Jackson was in eighth grade and in his four years of high school in Stillwater, they way he developed, and the trajectory of his career has been exciting. That is a small club of people that can say that. Not many people walking the earth that were the number one pick in the draft in a major sports league.”
Holliday was missing out on a big-time player, but family trumps recruiting. In fact, Holliday said he has been very relaxed in recruiting Jackson and his younger brother Ethan not wanting them to feel obligated to play for their uncle. Both have committed to Oklahoma State. Josh won’t get to coach Jackson, but he does get to be the proud uncle. His daughter Olivia and Jackson were born two weeks apart. Josh and his wife Jenny and Matt and his wife Leslee have raised their two oldest children virtually simultaneously over the years. They are all close. Josh has seen Jackson’s desire.
“He worked as hard as any kid that age I’ve ever seen from last year when he was on the radar to this year when he was picked first,” Holliday said of his nephew. “He is a skilled player, always has been, but he put some man muscles on and he totally overwhelmed people his senior season with the player he’d become.”
Now I did hear a story that I had never heard before. We know that Josh played baseball at Oklahoma State and Matt signed to play baseball and football at OSU, but signed with the Colorado Rockies out of high school. I did not know that when Tom had left and was coaching at Texas that college football came back in the picture for Matt, who for those that don’t remember was labeled a “sure fire” NFL quarterback someday.
“My dad got hired to be the pitching coach at the University of Texas one summer and Mack Brown was the football coach there at that time,” Josh Holliday relayed. “He called my dad and said, “I recognize the last name, are you by chance related to the quarterback?’ My dad answered, ‘That’s one of my sons.’ Mack said, ‘Where is he now?’ My dad said, ‘He’s playing minor league baseball.’ Coach Brown asked, ‘How’s he doing and has he ever given any thought to coming back and playing college football?’”
Matt’s minor league season ended, and he came down to Austin. Mack Brown asked him over to his office and started pitching him on playing football again.
“We don’t really have a quarterback identified for the future except maybe this athletic kid out of Houston,” Holliday said recounting what Mack Brown told Matt. “’He’s tall and he might play wide receiver or defensive back. We’re really not sure.’”
Matt decided to go back for one more year of baseball. He thought he was close to making it to the major leagues.
“Fast forward three years later and Matt and I are watching Vince Young lead Texas to a National Championship and that was after Matt had played two years in the big leagues,” Josh said giving the climax to the story. “You hear these stories all the time, but to see one unfold in front of you it is pretty fascinating it is how guy’s careers develop. It worked out for Matt to play baseball.”
I’ve got a good feeling that the Hollidays will see another baseball success story unfold in front of them with Jackson. Jackson did sing last week with the Orioles for a guaranteed $8 million plus.
