Harry Gurley Named Assistant Coach for Ohio State Baseball – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/21/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Sept. 21, 2005
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Harry Gurley has been named an assistant baseball coach at The Ohio State University, head coach Bob Todd announced Wednesday. Gurley has been retired since 2001 after more than 36 years in baseball at many different levels.
“Harry brings a great deal of experience with him to Ohio State,” Todd, about to enter his 19th season at Ohio State, said. “He comes with a varied background. His high school teams won state championships. He has experience at the major college level with a Southern Illinois team that reached the College World Series. He has coached in the minor leagues and served as a major-league scout. He brings a great deal of knowledge and experience of the game, especially as a pitching coach.”
Gurley, 65, who has spent the last four years in retirement in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., will work with the Buckeye pitchers and replaces Pat Bangtson, who departed after last season to become the head coach at the University of Akron.
Gurley coached high school baseball for 30 years in three different states. After teaching at the junior high level for three years, Gurley got his first coaching job at Hazelwood High School in Florissant, Mo. from 1967-69 and again from 1972-75. He coached the Hawks to the 1974 Missouri state championship. After the 1975 season, Gurley went to Lake Havasu City, Ariz. and coached Lake Havasu High School from 1976-91 and served as the school’s athletics director for four years. The Fighting Knights finished second in the 1983 state tournament. When he left after the 1991 season, he took a job at Kingwood High School in Kingwood, Texas, a northeast Houston suburb. His 1997 team won the regional championship, coming within one game of the state semifinals.
Following his seven seasons at Kingwood (1992-98), Gurley was a pitching coach for the Nevada (Mo.) Griffins that won the Jayhawk Collegiate Baseball Summer League championship and went on to finish second in the 1998 NBC Tournament in Wichita, Kan. He spent one season, 1984, as manager of the Helena (Mont.) Gold Sox of the Pioneer League (Class A) and led them to the league championship. Gurley also coached American Legion baseball early in his career and guided the Thoman-Boothe American Legion team in Overland, Mo., to the state championship in 1967 and 1968.
After coaching in the Jayhawk League in 1998, Gurley spent four years as an associate scout for the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Gurley has coached a total of 25 players who have played professional baseball, including 12 players who have played Major League Baseball. Four of his pupils – Jeff Austin, Andy Yount, Mark Mangum and Bob Milacki – were drafted in the first round of the MLB Draft, including three in four consecutive seasons when he coached at Kingwood High School.
This will be Gurley’s second college position. His first job was as an assistant coach at Southern Illinois under Richard “Itch” Jones, who retired as the head coach at the University of Illinois after the 2005 season. The Salukis finished second at the 1971 NCAA College World Series after advancing to a regional at Cooper Stadium in Columbus in 1970.
“I am very happy to be at Ohio State and excited to return to college coaching,” Gurley said. “I have a burning desire to get back to Omaha and am happy to be a part of a championship program. Working as an educator all of my life, I am excited about the opportunity to return to the academic arena at an outstanding university like Ohio State.”
A 1958 graduate of Ritenour High School, Gurley attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1963 and earned a master’s degree, while working as an assistant coach there in 1971. As a player for SIU, he was named to the NAIA All-Tournament Team in 1959.
He was the St. Louis Elks Baseball Man of the Year in 1969 and was inducted into the Greater St. Louis Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002. Gurley has served on the board of directors of the Arizona Coaches Association and was the baseball chairman of the National High School Coaches Association.
Gurley has one daughter, Paige McCracken, and two grandchildren, Will (6) and Tess (4), who live in Kirkwood, Mo.
