Series May Be Farrington’S Finale Decision On WSU’S Baseball Coach Will Come Soon

Washington State will end its baseball season with a home series against Oregon State this weekend. It might also be the end of Steve Farrington’s coaching career with the Cougars.

The fate of the coach will be decided in the next week and a half, said interim athletic director Marcia Saneholtz.

Farrington has been working under a yearly contract for each of his six years and Washington State could simply choose not to renew the contract. Or the coach, who makes a base salary of $59,130, could be given another extension.

Farrington does not know which way things may go. But he does realize the team has not lived up to his or the university’s expectations the past few seasons.

“We’ve obviously have been short, there is no doubt about it,” the coach said.

This season and last, the Cougars finished last in the Pacific-10 Conference. But those seasons were also the first in three decades that WSU has played in the Pac10 rather than the NorPac.

It has been those top southern teams from the former SixPac that have crushed the Cougars. Stanford, Arizona State, USC and UCLA, all postseason-bound teams, swept WSU this year. The Cardinal, ASU and UCLA did it in Pullman by a total of 123-31. Despite the lack of competitiveness against those teams, Farrington is quick to point out that the Cougars took two of three from Cal and Arizona and lost two one-run decisions to Washington.

“And we have a chance to get three series out of the eight (Pac-10 series) if we get this one this weekend,” Farrington said.

A sweep of the Beavers, even though it would mean the Cougars improved three games from last season’s Pac-10 win total, may not be enough to save Farrington. Especially considering the current state of Cougars athletics.

It has been well-documented that WSU’s top sports (football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and volleyball) have the worst conference winning percentage in Division I.

“The way things have gone the whole year with the whole program, maybe I’m the guy that has to say goodbye, I don’t know,” Farrington said. “If that is the way they want to do it, I have no control over it.” Farrington has also been in the unenviable position of following legendary Bobo Brayton.

“The transition from Bobo’s time to my time, it hasn’t been easy,” Farrington said. “Obviously, people wanted other choices, the Cougar thing or the ex-player thing.”

Farrington, a former national coach of the year, was hired from Lower Columbia College in 1994. He immediately had to deal with NCAA sanctions when he arrived. Washington State was sanctioned by the NCAA in Brayton’s last few years and Farrington has had to bear the brunt of those sanctions. Of his 11.7 scholarships, 2.5 were taken away in his first two seasons and a half-scholarship was taken away in his third.

Recruiting was further hampered by WSU’s decision to give Farrington the series of one-year contracts rather than a multiyear deal from the start.

“If I’m recruiting your son, the first question you are going to ask is `Are you going to be there next season?”’ the coach said. “The message that we have sent out there is one year at a time instead of the security of two or three years at a time. That’s a negative recruiting tool for anyone who wants to use it.”

And recruiting, while picking up, has been a problem. Take Josh Karp. The Bothel product turned his back on what many believed would have been a seven-figure contract, had he turned pro, to play for UCLA, not his father’s old team, Washington State.

“You put Karp on my mound and I get another 10 or 12 wins and we are not even having this discussion,” Farrington said. “One guy makes a difference in this game; one big-time guy. You can’t let the Karps or another ex-Cougar leave town.”

Preseason All-American Jason Grove was supposed to be that big-time guy this year, but like last year, he was injured early in the season. Grove, a junior, will undoubtedly be drafted and said he is almost positive he will leave after the season. The Cougars also will lose 13 seniors to graduation.

“It is going to be a complete facelift,” Farrington said. “But we feel we are going to be better off losing a large bunch because we are going to replacing them with more complete players.”

Still this summer remains a crucial time for the Cougars. The nucleus of young players they have needs to develop and the recruits need to know who the coach will be. If Farrington’s contract is not renewed, it might be late summer until a new coach is named because WSU will probably not name an athletic director until late June or early July.