Who is Rob Vaughn? An Exclusive Q&A with Alabama Baseball’s New Head Guy

BamaCentral’s Austin Hannon sat down with the Crimson Tide’s new coach for an exclusive one-on-one interview.

Austin Hannon | Jun 15, 2023

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — From Humble, Texas to Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Robert Earl Vaughn, or simply Rob Vaughn, is the newest member of Alabama athletics — taking over the reins of the Crimson Tide baseball program. Joining the ranks of Nick Saban, Nate Oats and Patrick Murphy and others, Vaughn is the new, young guy in town.

So who is Rob Vaughn, the newest head coach on campus? He sat down with BamaCentral for an exclusive one-on-one interview on Wednesday:

How did you get into baseball?

“I was born in Texas but lived [for] seven years up in Alaska. My dad was in the oil business so we lived up in Anchorage. I played hockey — did that for seven years. I played baseball up there but it was gravel fields. I mean Alaska baseball is probably about what you think it is. We moved back down to Texas when I was seven. My dad played baseball at Texas A&M so it was always kind of in my blood a little bit. Up in Anchorage, you weren’t really in a position to do a whole lot. Second grade — I fell in love with it. I loved everything about it. It was something my dad and I could really connect over. Hitting, throwing, playing catch, whatever it might be — that’s kind of where it started. I realized when I was 14 or 15 — ‘Hey I’m kind of good at this.’ This might be something I can do. I went up to Kansas State from there, played a couple years of pro ball and then kind of transitioned my career over to the coaching side. I’m starting to see that with my son — he’s getting into that a little bit. That’s been a really cool thing.”

What’s the recruiting strategy? How do you filter through the sure-MLB draft talent while also recruiting the really good college baseball players?

“You just never know. I think you always have to recruit the best. We’ve had it up at Maryland the last few years where we’ve had a couple arms that probably shouldn’t have got to college — but they tweaked something here or there and you look up and six months later they wind up on campus. We’re never going to be the one that’s like ‘That guy is too good, we’re not going to talk to him.’ You have to be smart with it and have your bases covered. As the recruiting season goes on, as the spring season moves on, you get a little better idea of ‘This kid’s probably going to show up, this kid’s not.’ You have to have talent. You’re not going to win at this level without talent. But we’ve got to make sure they’re our kind of kids. In the world of the transfers, in the world of a lot of these different things — the only prayer you keep kids and you develop them and you keep them here is by aligning with what they believe and how they want to do things — someone where the ‘Alabama’ across their chest really matters to them. It’s something deeper than just ‘I want to play in the SEC’ — no, it’s ‘I want to play for Alabama.’ That’s what we want to see. I think the recruiting piece is going to be huge. I’m very involved in recruiting, I love it. I’ve been chomping on the bit to get going.”

Was it difficult leaving Maryland — a program that you built up over the last six years?

“Definitely. I was telling some guys — I wasn’t looking to leave. I was very happy there, we had a great community there — even apart from the university. The neighborhood we lived in, the church we went to — there were great people in our lives there. We really put roots down, we spent 11 years of our lives there — both of our kids were born there. But I think deep down, there’s always that itch — what are we capable of doing? What can we do? And when this opportunity presented itself, the more I talked to Greg [Byrne], the more I talked to [Jason Jackson], the more I watched the team play — there’s no way I’m walking away from a situation like this. It was tough to leave and there’s friendships that I will miss — starting with my players. That’s a good group of kids — I got a text from almost every single one of them over the last few days just thanking me. Not bitter, not angry — I’m sure there are some that aren’t thrilled, but thanking me for the time there that we invested. Any time you do that, it’s tough to leave, but we couldn’t be more excited."

Are you expecting players from the 2023 team to transfer? How do you plan to have them buy in? How important was it to keep Jason Jackson around in terms of keeping the current players engaged?

“Any time there’s change, especially change in this circumstance — it wasn’t really abrupt change. These kids have had six-to-eight weeks to kind of process through some things not knowing what was going to happen. I’m sure there’s people in their ear, there’s things happening. There will be some natural turnover — I don’t care if you hire Joe Torre, there’s going to be natural turnover. At the same time, we’re trying to do everything we can to keep these guys in place. We’re trying to re-recruit our current roster and make sure that they know what we’re all about. I think once our staff is fully in place, I think that becomes a little bit easier. We’re working through that right now. There’s plenty of guys we’ve kind of got our eye on. Some of those conversations are happening behind the scenes. Now that we’re through the last few days, we can get to work on putting this team together.”

“That natural turnover probably goes into wholesale turnover [without Jackson]. If I didn’t feel like [Jackson] was who he was, if I didn’t feel like he was the right guy — it would’ve stunk in the short term because some guys would’ve walked out the door, but it would’ve been the best thing in the long term. But after you spend five minutes with him, you know that’s the right guy. That is the right dude to be here alongside me, helping us navigate this thing and orchestrating this. What he did over the last six weeks and how he led that team is nothing short of remarkable. The way he was able to just put a sense of calm in a pretty crazy situation — those guys didn’t flinch. They were thrown a curveball in the middle of SEC play the day you’re getting ready to play [Vanderbilt]. I remember sitting there in Maryland thinking, ‘They’re going to get beat by 200 today.’ One of my first questions to Greg — what can we do here? If I’m fortunate enough to be here, I don’t want to do it without him. We were able to fortunately keep him here and he’s going to be a massive piece of this moving forward.”

If you were to compare yourself to an MLB manager, past or present, who would it be?

“I’m not as cool as Dusty Baker — I don’t have a toothpick and wristbands. I grew up a Houston Astros guy, which is about the most unpopular thing of all time right now. I try to be super even-keeled. This game is hard. There’s ups and downs to this game. I think when you have a volatile coach that’s riding the wave, expects his team to keep a neutral mindset — that’s physically impossible. A.J. Hinch is a guy that’s cool, calm and collected. He’ll let an umpire have it every once in a while if he needs to but he’s smart, he’s calculated. Obviously banging on trash cans is something we’re going to stay away from doing — but outside of that, maybe that’s a good comparison.”

What is the goal for 2024?

“First things first, our goal is never not going to be knocking down the gates to Omaha. That’s just calling it what it is. I don’t want anybody to come here that doesn’t think that that’s a possibility. At Maryland, we didn’t have the resources, we didn’t have the platform. But every kid that walked through that door [believed it]. That’s what I want. I want kids that are convinced with every fiber of their being that we can do that. The 2023 team just showed that. You’re two wins away from going to hallowed ground up there. That hasn’t been done here in a while — but it has been done here before and I think that’s something for guys to remember. The quick and easy thing to say is ‘Hey, we’re going to go out and win the national championship this year.’ That’s never not going to be a goal of ours. But very honestly, in year one I want the culture to be set. I want us to get to a place to have an identity of ‘This is who we are.’ We’re comfortable in our own skin. We’re not trying to be somebody else — we are who we are and we’re going to go and lock horns with people every weekend and every midweek game. I really believe that culture and identity is really built in the fall and revealed in the spring.”

Explain “The Pack” mentality and what it means? How does the current personnel work into that?

“It came from Matt Deggs, who’s the head coach down at Louisiana-Lafayette — one of the more creative, outside-the-box thinkers in college baseball. At Texas A&M at the time, [he] was watching a documentary on a pack of wolves after a terrible year they had. Long story short — every wolf in the pack has a job, just like our hitters. Understanding who you are, understanding what you’re good at is the first step of you becoming good. If I’ve got Jim Jarvis trying to be Andrew Pinckney, it’s just not going to work. Those are two different styles, two different players. But if they both can kind of do what they do at a really high level and you put those things together, that functions at a high level. That’s what ‘The Pack’ is. We all have a different job. Some guys are more your runners — they’ve got to be on base, they’ve got to create a distraction. Their goal is to have a sky-high OBP and lots of stolen bases. The other end of the spectrum — you have your bombers. Those are the guys that slug the baseball. They need to be a presence in the lineup, they need to drive runs in — they’re professional RBI collectors. And then you have everything in between. It’s about understanding where you fit in in that. One’s not better than the other, but you’ve got to fit in one of those boxes so that you can understand what you’ve got to be good at. And I think that’s really freeing for some kids. Some guys may go walk up next to Colby Shelton and watch him hit balls 800 feet and think ‘I can’t do that so I must suck.’ No — that’s just not your game. For us, that will be a big part about this fall. I have some ideas for where some guys fit, but it’s going to be me getting to know those hitters.”

What gives you confidence that this school, this program can compete with the SEC’s best?

“The 2023 team — very simply. Those guys just ran it off. I was convinced those guys were going to Omaha. They ran into the same buzzsaw that we ran into the week before. I look at the history here. There’s a lot of championships that have been won here, there’s a lot of big-leaguers that have come out of here. They’ve been to Omaha, they can do these things. It’s been done before. You have a beautiful facility, you have a brand that people care about that’s national. I think it’s a world-class experience for these kids. I really believe if we can really attract our type of kids — we’ve always been in the business of doing special things. I told our guys from the jump — I’m in the business of doing the impossible. But I think that takes an identity and that takes us buying into who we are. If we can buy into those things and we can stack a roster full of those things, there’s no reason we can’t knock that door down.”

How do you do on-field game apparel? Jersey, sweatshirt?

“I was a hoodie, BP-top guy for years — kind of like [Jackson] does. That’s all I did. We were 4-7 this year, we weren’t off to a good start. Baseball is the most superstitious sport ever. Our players said ‘Coach, you’ve got to wear your jersey today.’ I haven’t worn my jersey in years. I put it on and we started going on a run. We’re going to reset that — I enjoy not wearing my jersey, but I had to wear it for the rest of the year because we got hot, got rolling.”

Rank your rivals (Auburn, Tennessee, LSU) based on importance?

“I think obviously in this state, I think Auburn’s got to be [No. 1]. Personally, Tony Vitello over at Tennessee — I’ve known Tony for a lot of years. Tony recruited me out of high school. There will be a natural rivalry there. I’ve been watching him from afar and they get after that in that situation. And LSU is LSU. They’ve got a lot of stuff, they’ve got a lot of fan stuff. I played in Alex Box [Stadium] as a player and as a coach. I think Auburn’s got to be [No. 1] on that list and you can plug those other two behind them however you want. There’s going to be some competitive games with those three schools for sure.”

Favorite thing about the state of Alabama / South as a whole?

“Sweet tea — number one. I’m so tired of going up there and you ask for a tea and they’re like ‘We’ll bring you some sweetener with it.’ The people. Southern hospitality’s been just so incredible. I saw that a little bit in Texas, but this is even a little bit different. To me, there’s the south — and then there’s Texas. The "welcomingness," the people, the culture down here, the pace of life down here is outstanding — we’ve seen that in 24 hours already.”

In theory, how would you handle the new extra-innings rule in the MLB with a runner on second base to start the inning?

“I think it depends on who’s at the plate. If Colby Shelton is at the plate — we ain’t bunting anybody. That guy’s going to hit a two-run jack and we’re going to win that thing. I’m not a short-game guy very often, I’m not a get a guy on and bunt him over to second. I’ve just never believed in giving away outs in that situation.”

Do you believe you can bring Alabama its first national championship during your tenure?

“I do or I wouldn’t be here. I’ve been walking around — you see the resources, you see the people, you see the quality of what’s coming in. I think they’ve laid the foundation. I think the foundation has been laid on what this is capable of. The reason I think you can — these guys have been there before. This program has been to Omaha. This is not a program where you’re dreaming — they’ve been there. I think for us — it’s a new world, there’s crazy things. But I can tell you — a big reason I came is not because of a nice facility. It’s not just because it’s cool. It’s because I think you can win at a really high level here and I think the 2023 team showed that. I think there’s no reason we can’t keep building this thing — that you can get this thing to where you’re the last team standing at the end.”

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