MIAMI — J.D. Arteaga spent his first day last month as University of Miami head baseball coach in his tiny office down the hall from what used to be Gino DiMare’s spacious digs.
“I made one phone call from here and didn’t feel comfortable,’’ Arteaga, who was promoted on June 26 after five-year head coach DiMare stepped down, told the Miami Herald on Tuesday in a one-on-one interview from that sprawling office in which he now feels at home. He even did his first press availability via Zoom from his former office.
“I have an open-door policy,’’ said Arteaga, 48, “but now I keep my door closed because if not, I get nothing done.
“The days go by a lot quicker because there’s just a lot more going on. Early on, a lot of people were coming in the office and congratulating me. But I still take the same route to work every day, and once I walk in the office I turn left instead of right. We’re still the same program and have the same goal — to make this program the best program in the country.”
Arteaga, UM’s former pitching coach and associate head coach, has a five-year contract. He already hired pitching/mental skills coach Laz Gutierrez, a former Hurricanes player and most recently the Nova Southeastern University head coach; and two other full-time assistants — former longtime Boston Red Sox assistant Darren Fenster to coach hitting, infielders and catchers; and recruiting coordinator Jonathan Anderson, who also will coach outfielders after previously serving as UM director of player development.
Arteaga said that Fenster will coach third base, where DiMare coached; and Anderson will coach first base.
He said he will be given the resources to hire two off-the-field analytics assistants to replace the former student volunteers, and a sports scientist to work with strength and conditioning coach H.R. Powell. Arteaga also told the Herald that former volunteer coach Brandon Brewer will be promoted to director of player development.
“We had all the the technology to get the information, but we didn’t have the resources of people power to run it,’’ Arteaga said. “A lot of it was was thrown on the coaches and there just wasn’t enough time. So we had students that would hit the record button to record the information, then just give it to us. That’s just half the battle. The real gains are when you break the numbers down and put them to use.
“The game has changed and the use of analytics and sports scientists are a huge part of it. There is a gap between the New Age coach and the old school coach, and I like to think I’m stuck in the middle somewhere.”
Arteaga spent the past 21 years at UM, not including his four years from 1994 to 1997 as one of the program’s finest pitchers. He worked alongside DiMare for decades, but even he was caught off guard — “shocked,’’ he said, when DiMare stepped down on the heels of a strong season (42-21, 18-12 Atlantic Coast Conference) that for the fifth consecutive year ended depressingly with the Canes losing in the first-round regionals of the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament.
“I think right now he’s with his family,’’ Arteaga said of DiMare, “and just kind of, you know, keeping his distance from here. But it’s been, ‘Whatever you need, I’m here.’’’
Was Arteaga nervous when DiMare resigned?
“No,’’ he said. “I think ‘concern’ might be a better word. I had been here 21 years and knew that if they brought in another head coach, that person might bring a pitching coach with them. So, you know, my job, there was no certainty to it. So, I was more concerned about my livelihood and how I’d support my family. And my love for this program... This is the only program I’ve ever been a part of and only one I want to be a part of.
“But there were two-and-a-half weeks of uncertainty about whether I’d be able to wear the uniform again.’’
Arteaga, married to the former Ysha Schettini, is the father of 18-year-old daughter Ariana and late son Ari, who died at 16 in a 2018 car accident. He has a laid-back, warm personality and considers himself a players’ coach whose philosophy, learned from his Westminster Christian coach Rich Hofman, is “person first, not the athlete or the player.”
“I was fortunate to play for a legendary high school coach. And the day I got the job he told me, in order for you to coach a player, they’ve got to believe you care about them. That’s my philosophy. The human being first. And when you care about them off he field, they’re going to give you everything they can on the field.”
UM’s new coach doesn’t pay heed to the segment of UM fans who believe the program should have gone outside to make a fresh, new hire instead of promoting an old-timer from within.
“I don’t listen to it,’’ Arteaga said. “I firmly feel I’m the perfect person for this job. I’ve never been a head coach, so I get it. But it’s going to be a learning curve either way. ...But you know what? Those same people saying, ‘They need changes,’ are going to be congratulating you when we have success.
“The goal doesn’t change. We’ve still got to win and get to Omaha [for the College World Series]. And the truth is, it’s not a program that’s completely broken. We have had good seasons, but a couple of things didn’t go our way in the postseason. When you look back into those historic runs we made in the early ‘80s to early 2000s, there were so many games that could have gone against us, but just fortunate bounces went our way. You know, it’s baseball.”
UM won national championships in 1982, 1985, 1999 and 2001, and Arteaga knows all about Omaha. His Canes teams went to the College World Series all four years he played, including in 1996. That year, Miami was one out from winning a national title before LSU’s Warren Morris hit a ninth-inning, two-run walk-off homer to steal the title and plunge a dagger that diehard UM baseball fans still feel.
“We were one out from winning the national championship and even I consider that a failure,’’ he said.
Arteaga said throughout his interview process that “they all kept asking me if I had concerns about the job, and I really didn’t understand the question. I was like, it’s a dream job, what concern could I possibly have?”
Finally, he said, the last meeting he had was with Rudy Fernandez, the University’s executive vice president for operations and external affairs. “He asked me the same thing,’’ Arteaga said. “I finally told him I didn’t get the question. What concerns could there be? He mentioned the pressure of being a head coach here and the expectations that come along with the job.
“Look, no one understands that better than I do. I helped create it. Being one out from winning a national championship and ending up failing... It’s always been ‘Omaha or bust.’ I helped create that motto.”
Fernandez was at an alumni reception held on campus later Tuesday afternoon. He said he was “thrilled’’ to “start this new chapter of UM baseball” with Arteaga in charge.
“We have one of the very best programs in the country,’’ Fernandez said, “and this is a very exciting time. J.D. has been part of 10 teams that have made it to Omaha. Obviously, the goal is the College World Series. He led us four consecutive years as a star pitcher and he was a key assistant for six teams that went to Omaha under Jim Morris. He knows what it takes.. He bleeds the orange and green. He has one of the best baseball minds in the country in intercollegiate athletics.
“J.D. is hungry to have us return to Omaha. That was important to us.’’
