By Jose Trujillo
San Jose State officially introduced former interim coach Brad Sanfilippo as its head coach Wednesday afternoon.
The UC Davis graduate was greeted to a standing ovation by a packed house in the Simpkins Stadium Center on South Campus.
With fellow SJSU head coaches, fans, donors, friends and family in attendance, Sanfilippo couldn’t help but feel emotional.
“This is a dream come true,” he said. “ This day right here is a culmination of a lot of different people and hard work, great players that I’ve coached and my family, my wife and daughter.”
The Spartans new head coach realizes that succeeding in life is in a way similar to baseball, you will need teammates, or in this case friends, family and mentors that help you through the thick and thin, the good and bad.
“In order to be a coach, you need people to stand by you and support you,” he said. “You need people to inspire you to be in a position like this, to be proud of where I am today.”
It wasn’t until three weeks before the start of the 2018 season that Sanfilippo was hired, yet with little time to get acclimated with his new team, he still found a way to win while keeping his team focused in the classroom.
“We all know 2017-2018 was full of excitement and challenging times,” said SJSU Athletic Director Marie Tuite. “Their participation in the Mountain West baseball tournament was just extraordinary, but even more so how they stayed focused on their academics.”
The overall performance of the team on and off the diamond made Tuite’s decision to promote Sanfilippo much easier, but he also checked every box the Spartans Athletic Director was looking for personality wise.
“I look for a lot,” she said. “ First thing I’m looking for is someone who I can trust to do the right thing every single day. Im looking for someone with a good moral compass, someone with real strong integrity, someone who can lead a program, and certainly Sanfilippo proved that.”
The ceremony proved to be a day that Sanfilippo will remember for the rest of his life.
Even then, he understands that this is just the beginning of his journey at SJSU.
“From this point forward obviously it’s hard work on the field and in recruiting to try and get this program to where it needs to be,” he said.
For now, Sanfilippo can enjoy the day, and as for a family celebration, it’s still up in the air.
“I thinks it’s finally a relax the coat pocket and take a deep breath, but probably a nice dinner, maybe Original Joe’s with the family, something like that would make this the perfect day.”
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