It’S Official: WSU Fires Farrington
Washington State decided not to wait to release the information that just about everyone knew.
Late Monday night, WSU released a formal statement on the firing of baseball coach Stave Farrington.
The announcement was supposed to take place Wednesday, but news of Farrington’s firing, which took place Sunday night, had already been well publicized.
“Steve has many qualities we all want in a coach, but unfortunately, his effort, passion, and hard work did not translate into the successes we expect for this program,” said interim athletic director Marcia Saneholtz.
Farrington took over for the legendary Bobo Brayton in June of 1994, but was never able to field a consistently successful team.
His first season was his best. The team went 18-12 in the NorPac and finished first. But the constraints of dealing with inherited NCAA sanctions and the realignment of the Pac-10 prove to be too difficult a task. His career record at WSU was 136-198. His Pac-10 record was 59-91.
“Steve took over in difficult circumstances,” Saneholtz said. “He was asked to replace a legend, and when he took over, the program was on probation and had suffered scholarship reductions as part of WSU’s penalties imposed by the NCAA and the Pacific-10 Conference.
“Steve gave it everything he has, and I commend him for the unfailing energy he gave to the program.”
Farrington, who made a base salary of $59,130, is the third coach of a major program to leave WSU in a little more than a year. Men’s basketball coach Kevin Eastman resigned last March one day after women’s basketball coach Harold Rhodes was fired. Farrington came to Washington State after putting together a successful 11-year run at Lower Columbia Community College. At LCCC, he was 205-71, won three NWAACC titles, and was named national coach of the year in 1992.
Many said recruiting was Farrington’s main failing at WSU. Farrington also acknowledged that missing out on Cougar legacies such as Bothell product Josh Karp, an ace on the UCLA staff and the son of a former Cougar, has hurt the program. But he said only being signed to yearly contracts during his tenure hurt his recruiting chances with players.
The contracts of the current assistants Russ Swan and Ken Johnson will also not be renewed.
“We will encourage the new coach to consider them as he assembles his staff,” Saneholtz said.
Washington State will immediately begin the search for a replacement, but will not hire until the new athletic director is in place.
“Within the next week we will form a search committee to help with the recruitment and screening of candidates,” Saneholtz said. “We hope to have the pool of candidates narrowed down for presentation to the new athletic director when that position is filled later this summer.”