The trio of Brad Weitzel, Kevin O'Sullivan and Craig Bell have manned Florida's dugout for 11 seasons together. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
The Braintrust: O'Sullivan, Bell and Weitzel at Heart of Gators' Success
Thursday, June 21, 2018 | Baseball, Scott Carter
Gators head coach Kevin O'Sullivan, radiating a laser focus toward the field, will be flanked by a pair of colleagues he has known since he was a player with dreams of perhaps one day appearing in the College World Series.
O'Sullivan never made it to Omaha as a player, but in 11 seasons as Florida's head coach, he has led the Gators to seven trips to the CWS, including the program's first national title a year ago.
Florida (48-20) faces Texas Tech (45-19) on Thursday night in an elimination game, the Gators' 25th CWS game under O'Sullivan's direction. Prior to O'Sullivan taking over the program in 2008, the Gators had played 19 CWS games in school history.
Getting to Omaha has become so commonplace for the Gators they know the best restaurants to visit, the ones to avoid, and they sometimes get recognized as they walk around the Old Market section of town that is engulfed by CWS fans each June.
This season marks the Gators' school-record fourth consecutive trip to Omaha.
And in every one of those games here, with O'Sullivan calling the shots from the dugout, assistant Brad Weitzel is usually standing to O'Sullivan's right, and fellow assistant Craig Bell to O'Sullivan's left.
The team within the team, which has included volunteer assistant coach Lars Davis the past four years, runs like a well-oiled machine.
"There is a lot of unsaid stuff that we do and we know," said Bell, who also serves as third-base coach and works closely with the hitters. "We know each other so well. The way we go about getting things done is a given. There's not a guesswork on how we want things done. It's easy that way."
The veteran trio of O'Sullivan, Weitzel and Bell have a long history that dates back to the mid-1980s in South Florida.
The 60-year-old Weitzel first met O'Sullivan, 49, when he coached an American Legion Team in Jupiter. O'Sullivan was a hard-working catcher who even then showed a higher baseball IQ than your average teenager.
"I've always felt like his older brother or uncle,'' Weitzel said.
Meanwhile, the 52-year-old Bell grew up in West Palm Beach and spent two seasons playing at Palm Beach Junior College when Weitzel was an assistant there. One summer as O'Sullivan's American Legion Team prepared for the postseason, they played an exhibition game against Palm Beach JC.
Weitzel wore multiple hats in those days when NCAA rules permitted college coaches to also scout for professional teams. Weitzel spent summers scouting amateur players in the area for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
In the extensive files he maintains inside his office at McKethan Stadium, Weitzel has a scorebook from those summers early in his professional scouting career. In one of the games he scored, Bell played center field for Palm Beach JC and O'Sullivan started at catcher for Jupiter's American Legion squad.
"Imagine that. You coach a kid, probably 16 or 17 years old, and then one day you're working for the same kid,'' Weitzel said. "How does that happen? He's going to talk you out of pro ball. You don't know what's going to happen down the line."
Weitzel and O'Sullivan were both born in New York state, making their way to Florida as they got older. In fact, the serendipity of the trio's current existence can be traced to Weitzel's decision to pick up and move to South Florida in the late 1970s in hopes of playing college baseball. He landed at Palm Beach JC, introduced himself to then-head coach Dusty Rhodes, and two years later signed with the University of Georgia to play shortstop.
Weitzel later returned to Palm Beach JC as an assistant and then followed Rhodes to the University of North Florida in Jacksonville when Rhodes was hired to start the school's baseball program.
Bell and O'Sullivan soon landed in Jacksonville, too, Bell as a player at UNF and O'Sullivan as a catcher at Florida Community College of Jacksonville.
"We go way, way back,'' Bell said.
After two years in junior college, O'Sullivan developed into a good enough player to get an offer from Virginia, where he was an All-Atlantic Coast Conference player. Meanwhile, as the years passed and O'Sullivan embarked on a college coaching career, Weitzel and Bell were in the midst of successful careers as professional scouts.
Weitzel spent 16 years as the Florida area scout for the Minnesota Twins, signing 19 players who went on to become major leaguers. Bell served as a professional scout for the Reds and as a supervising area scout for the Mariners.
They maintained regular contact throughout the years and crossed paths often, all three deeply embedded into the game at different levels.
And then O'Sullivan got hired at Florida.
"I only made two calls," O'Sullivan said. "I knew Craig because I was at Clemson and Craig was scouting the Carolinas with the Mariners at that time. I knew how good of an evaluator he was. I know how good of a baseball person Brad is. A lot of people try to hire guys that have these long collegiate résumés, but I knew without a doubt those two guys were the guys to help us get to where we wanted to get to."
Bell didn't have to think long about the offer. He understood the resources the University of Florida had and the state's talent pool.
"A sleeping giant,'' he said. "I knew I wanted to get back into coaching."
Meanwhile, Weitzel had second thoughts at first, considering his success as a scout at evaluating and signing major leaguers such as Denard Span, Doug Mientkiewicz and A.J. Pierzynski.
However, with two high school-aged kids at the time and a wife interested in education, he changed directions.
"I love pro ball. I love coaching pro ball. I love scouting pro ball. I love pro ball because that's the best of the best in the world. There's only 30 teams,'' Weitzel said. "But [Sully] got the job and called in the morning and wanted me to be his assistant coach. I basically told him no in the morning because I loved my job. And I started thinking, 'Oh my God, if my wife ever finds this out, she is going to murder me.' She is an academic person. She wants to be in an academic setting."
With Bell and Weitzel on board, O'Sullivan went to work at building the Gators into the powerhouse they have become. No other school in the country has as many trips to the CWS as Florida during O'Sullivan's tenure.
Eleven years later, he views their success and longevity as a staff a combination of many things, their long personal relationships at the forefront.
"Being familiar with each other all these years, we all came from the same coaching tree, we've all lived most of our lives in Florida,'' O'Sullivan said. "I think it's worked out great for everybody involved.
"Everybody just knows their role. Everybody knows what they need to do within our staff to make it work. There is really no other way to explain it other than it's a consistent, everyday grind. They both put in a great effort day in and day out. I think the consistency of their work ethic and how they go about their job day in and day out has helped us stay as one of the elite clubs in our country."
Not only has UF's baseball program benefited greatly from the trio's efforts, but so have the players they have recruited and signed over the years. The Gators have had 91 players drafted in the MLB amateur draft since their arrival, including 13 first-rounders.
Third baseman Jonathan India, and pitchers Brady Singer and Jackson Kowar gave the Gators a school-record three first-rounders in this year's draft.
A second-round pick of the Blue Jays three years ago, Singer opted to attend college and delay the start of his professional career. The coaching staff played a large role.
"They all played, all played at high levels, and obviously they've been here a lot of years,'' Singer said. "You can see how many World Series they've gone through, SEC games … to have them around helping us out and hearing Sully talk about the past, and now to the future about winning that championship last year, there's a lot of learning experiences that those guys have gone through to help us out."
As for what makes the staff so successful, there is no exact answer. Hard work. An eye for talent. A keen strategic approach in games. O'Sullivan sets the tone, placing an urgency on the players to improve as soon as they arrive. Weitzel is viewed by some as the drill sergeant, breaking down and then lifting up players in what he calls "Dr. Phil sessions." Bell has a knack for detail and the program's overall pulse in mind. The youngest member of the staff, Davis often serves as the liaison between the players and staff.
A lot of staffs have those ingredients, but few have the history together O'Sullivan, Bell and Weitzel share.
That's what makes the group unique in an age when coaching changes turn over like leaves in the fall.
"I don't want to do anything else,'' Weitzel said. "I don't golf. I don't fish. I don't hunt. I just really, really enjoy making players better. I've got all this stuff in my head for these kids and these coaches. Not that I have all the answers, I don't. But I've seen a lot more than most people."
The three baseball lifers have added to their memory bank in their time together at UF. They continue to strive for more.
"Eleven years later, it's still a lot of work. It has gotten easier, that's for sure," Bell said. "We're all different. We all have different personalities even though we've known each other a long time. I don't know what my role is other than to try and help the players get better. Sometimes it's one of those things where we all check each other to some extent. We all have our strengths and weaknesses as coaches. I think I try to look at the big picture as much as possible. I'm not into little things at all. I want to try and win the World Series."
More often than not since they arrived, the Gators at least have had a chance.
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