Longtime Texas baseball head coach Cliff Gustafson passes away at 91
Cliff Gustafson, head coach of two national championship baseball teams at Texas and 22 squads that won the Southwest Conference regular season title, died on Monday. He was 91.
Gustafson played for the Longhorns under Bibb Falk and famously made the leap from the bench at South San Antonio High School to the University of Texas ahead of the 1968 season after winning six state championships with the Bobcats.
At Texas, he led the proud Texas baseball program to an historic run in his 29-year collegiate coaching career, with national championships in 1975 and 1983, 22 SWC regular season titles, 11 SWC Tournament titles, and 17 appearances at the College World Series.
Gustafson’s small-ball centric program became one of the most impressive the sport has ever seen. In his 29 seasons, the Longhorns finished outside of the top two of the SWC just four times. His teams reached Omaha in seven of his first eight seasons as head coach, finally winning a national championship of his own in 1975 to complete a 59-6 season. He added another in 1983 on a team that featured Billy Bates, Roger Clemens, and Calvin Schiraldi.
Eighteen seasons featured 50 or more wins, while six squads recorded 60 or more wins. His 1977 team set the record for the longest winning streak in Division I baseball history at 34, matched only one time in 1999 by Florida Atlantic.
He stepped down in 1996 after winning the final Southwest Conference regular season title, finishing with a career record of 1466-377-2.
Gustafson was a two-time national coach of the year. He coached 35 first-team All-Americans, 12 second-team All-Americans, and nine third-team All-Americans.
He is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and the National College Baseball Hall of Fame.
Some of the players Gustafson coached who made it to Major League Baseball include Clemens, Kirk Dressendorfer, Ron Gardenhire, Burt Hooten, Brooks Kieschnick, Keith Moreland, Calvin Murray, Spike Owen, Shane Reynolds, and Greg Swindell.
Gustafson was honored by the university in multiple ways throughout his life. Part of UFCU Disch-Falk Field is named after the Kenedy native, while his bust is alongside those of Billy Disch, Bibb Falk, and Augie Garrido outside of the Disch-Falk front gates. His No. 18 is not officially retired but has never been worn by another Longhorn.
