Garrido to spend opening weekend home

AUSTIN(KXAN) - Augie Garrido enters his 41st year as a head baseball coach this weekend, but he won't be at the field to see it.  Garrido will stay home for UT's four game series with Illinois-Chicago as he serves his university imposed suspension for his DWI arrest and guilty plea in January.

Garrido said that he will go through that helpless feeling that all fans experience while listening to the games on the radio.

"As I listen to it rather than watch it, its a lot harder to be a fan so I'll get an appreciation all uncomfortable things that people that watch the games that aren't mislead by the fact that they think they have control just by being in the dugout, so I think that will be the big change", said Garrido.

Longtime assistant Tommy Harmon will take over in Garrido's absence with Skip Johnson handling the pitching staff.  For the players who ranked 4th in the nation in the pre-season and picked 2nd in the Big 12 by the coaches, they don't expect things to be much different.

"Just maybe looking in and not seeing him (Garrido) in the dugout for the signs, you know he prepares us for adversity and everything that goes along with baseball," said senior 3rd Baseman Michael Torres.

Sophomore Chance Ruffin is scheduled to start Friday's opener.  There has been a scheduling change for Sunday.  Instead of a 1:00pm start, they have moved up the first pitch to 12:30pm to accomodate Illinois-Chicago's travel schedule.