Kansas baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald, players highlight progress
Check out everything Kansas baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald and his players had to say Wednesday as the Jayhawks continued to progress this season.
LAWRENCE — There’s a level of attention around the Kansas baseball program exceeding what many might have anticipated in 2025.
The Jayhawks (36-10, 15-6 in Big 12 Conference) are on a nine-game winning streak that includes a win Tuesday at home against rival Missouri. They are back in the top 25 of the USA TODAY Sports baseball coaches poll, at No. 25. The conversation is no longer just about KU reaching its first NCAA regional since 2014, because there is a chance the team could go so far as to host a regional, too.
But with that attention, can also come a focus on what coach Dan Fitzgerald has been able to accomplish in Lawrence the just the third year of a rebuild. Other schools in search of a lift of their own programs could come calling, searching to see if Fitzgerald is open to being pried away from Kansas. Cleary, Fitzgerald has proven he’s someone who can ensure fans don’t have to wait all that long to see success from.
Fitzgerald, though, speaking last week, outlined the possibility of his name popping up on social media as a potential candidate for another job isn’t remotely close to his radar or that of his staff’s. While he appreciates how social media can allow someone to reach to so many about a philanthropic cause they care about so quickly, the other side of that is social media can cause so much distraction and drama. Within the KU program he has a no drama policy, and he’d put any talk about another school wanting to hire him into that bucket.
Keep playing with a free mind, and Kansas baseball can reach 1st NCAA regional since 2014
“It’s been really hard, it’s been unbelievably challenging, it’s been incredibly rewarding and we’ve done it together and we’re having so much fun doing it and we came specifically to KU for all the reasons that I’ve said 100 times — to build and to do something really special and to do something sustainable,” Fitzgerald said on April 21, not far removed from sweeping rival Kansas State.
“So, if people talk about that, I promise you this man, it won’t be something that I’m even aware of or care about because I have complete and total focus on executing what we set out to do, continue on the path that we’re going on, and it’s not even a thought.”
Fitzgerald would go on to explain that there’s stuff he reads about all of the time that, once he’s read it, he moves on, and what he’s read doesn’t have an effect on his life. He mentioned looking into hummingbird migration recently as one example, because he has hummingbird feeders in his backyard. The point being, seemingly, that there’s just so much information out there now that one could soon find oneself consumed by it.
Fitzgerald understands the notion of rather having people talk positively about his program than negatively, but added that even if people were saying bad things, he would be unaware of that as well. He pointed back to last year and how he wasn’t thinking about if people thought Kansas overachieved, and instead about the guys in his dugout as they put themselves in position to make a NCAA regional — before ultimately coming up short. He’s focused on evaluating if the program is moving in the right direction.
Fitzgerald says he believes heavily in how much he considers who you work for, and where you work. He praised his relationship with Travis Goff, KU’s athletic director and vice chancellor, and Sean Lester, a deputy athletic director for administration, and how much they’ve all collaborated since he took the job ahead of the 2023 season. Fitzgerald also praised how well two coaches he’s worked for in the past, Dallas Baptist’s Dan Heefner and LSU’s Jay Johnson, have handled the drama that can come with this topic.
“One thing I’d point to is, when this job opened last time, when coach (Ritch) Price retired … as far as I know, like, I think the first time my name was associated with this job is when I took it,” Fitzgerald said. “So, I think most of the time when there’s the rumors and the gossip, it’s usually just that. Just rumors and gossip.”
When Fitzgerald talks to Lester and Goff, the latter of whom said before the Kansas State series, he and Fitzgerald are already talking about what it will take to further the momentum the program has; their conversations encompass a lot.
The landscape isn’t just different at KU compared to a few years ago, but with college athletics as a whole when it comes to name, image, and likeness (NIL), revenue sharing, and more. Fitzgerald described the adjustments as driving on the same road they have been since he arrived, and just changing lanes here and there depending on what’s come up.
Staff retention is vital in Fitzgerald’s mind, considering how collaborative the group he has is, but as he says that he also highlights that commitment to his program is as strong now as it was when he was hired. He expressed how thankful he is to have the opportunity he has. He can’t imagine having better or more immediate access to an athletic director than what he has with Goff.
“The team effort thing is real and it’s not just in talk,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s very much in action, and it is a — it’s the exact partnership that we talked about almost three years ago.”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
