Head coach Bill Mosiello addresses media at his introductory press conference June 21. Credit: Jacob Benge | Sports Editor
In 38 years of baseball, Bill Mosiello has been everywhere.
The Sacramento, California, native has helped develop 90 Major League Baseball players, 28 MLB All-Stars and four current major league managers. In the college ranks, 30 of his players have been named All-Americans and six of those were their conference’s players of the year.
Named Ohio State’s next head coach in June 2022, Mosiello brought in a new staff, 11 transfers and seven freshmen while returning 20 players from last year’s squad. Just one week from opening day, Mosiello is determined to bring the Buckeyes back into the national spotlight after a 20-30 record last season and a four-year NCAA regional drought.
“One thing I guaranteed and promised this group was I wasn’t going to wait for three years for my players to get here,” Mosiello said. “The first day I took the job they are my players, and I’m lucky that there are some really good ones.”
As an assistant in 10 seasons with nine different schools, Mosiello is known to make a great first impression. In his first years with programs, his teams have a combined record of 361-220 with four NCAA regional appearances and a College World Series berth with TCU in 2014.
Ohio State is looking to fit that mold into what would be Mosiello’s first year as a college baseball head coach.
Mosiello said buying into a program has made his teams successful in the first year of each stop along his baseball journey, and he has already seen Ohio State commit to his vision.
“The buy-in has been 100 percent, and I couldn’t have had a better group of kids,” Mosiello said. “We’re trying to change the culture, thought process, and trust and you have to win together to understand what it is.”
Mosiello said he is always thankful for the previous coaching staffs that came before him and the kind of people they were able to bring to each university.
“It’s a tribute to the coaches for the job they did and it’s a tribute to Ohio State that the kids want to be at this place,” Mosiello said. “That’s why I chose it.”
From afar, Mosiello has seen the highs of Ohio State baseball and always had the program on his coaching radar. As the hitting coach at California State, Fullerton in 1992, he coached against Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament and said he loved the way the Buckeyes played.
Seven years later on his way to manage in the Cape Cod Baseball League, Mosiello and his wife stopped in Columbus for the NCAA Super Regional series between CSUF and Ohio State.
“We came here to watch a three-game series, and I fell in love with Columbus,” Mosiello said. “I thought, ‘Man, look what this place looks like. I would like to be a head coach here.'”
After that day, Mosiello said he followed the coaching situation in Columbus closely but was never sure if the dream would be fulfilled.
“There were some years where maybe they were going to make a change and then they would win a Big Ten Tournament and now they are in a regional,” Mosiello said.
That feeling of belief and trust paid off for Mosiello when the Ohio State head coaching job opened for the first time in 12 years.
“When it happened, I remember I told my wife that’s going to be my child,” Mosiello said. “That’s what I’ve always wanted to be.”
After patience, Mosiello gets the chance to lead a Division I program for the first time. Twenty-four years removed from his first visit to Bill Davis Stadium, he still thinks back to that series in 1999 as one of his visions for the program.
After spending five years as a minor league manager with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels organizations, Mosiello said there are major differences in managing a professional club and leading a college program.
“When you’re in professional baseball, you have scouts and people that get to pick your players,” Mosiello said. “Your job is whoever you coach.”
But what Mosiello loves about coaching college baseball is that it is the opposite, he said.
“You’re the one picking the players to coach,” Mosiello said. “You’re the scouting director, you’re the general manager, you’re the owner basically of your program. You always answer to somebody else or a few other people, but you have your hands on anything.”
Associate head coach and pitching coach Sean Allen is one of Mosiello’s five new staff members. Allen, who previously was an assistant coach at Texas, will now get to see what it is like to coach with Mosiello after six years against him.
“It’s a common denominator,” Allen said. “Playing against him when he was at TCU, and I was at Texas, just a ton of respect having to prepare for him and his offenses.”
With Mosiello’s staff and roster in place, the new-look Buckeyes are ready for opening day Feb. 17 versus UConn.
Mosiello said making the fans and the alumni proud and giving them something they want to call their own is what excites him most about this upcoming season.
“With this group of guys and to do something that maybe people don’t think can be done so fast,” Mosiello said. “That’s the excitement.”
