Editors note: This is the first installment in a series looking back at Eastern baseball coach Jim Schmitz’s 20 years coaching the Panthers.

Jim Schmitz had a small office buried away in a corner of Lantz Arena when he first arrived to Eastern in the fall of 1994.

The Eastern baseball season was five months away, when Schmitz first took a seat in his own miniscule oasis.

“We had a little office over in Lantz — we had a shag carpet, a military file and a typewriter,” Schmitz said. “That was it. No computers, no nothing.”

Schmitz said he was well aware of the differences between Eastern and his former employer, but he was not only physically more than 400 miles away from Ole Miss, Schmitz was in a complete different world of recruiting.

After spending four years being the assistant coach under Don Kessinger at Ole Miss, Schmitz arrived in Charleston where he had no money, no assistant coaches and no where to stay.

The day before he departed for Eastern, Schmitz made a call to determine where he would be staying in his first couple of days in Charleston. Schmitz did not get the best answer.

“We don’t have a place for you to stay,” Schmitz said was the response he received.

With no place to stay, Schmitz had to rely on an unconventional roommate that happened to be a member of the baseball team.

Mike Higgins only appeared in two games during the 1994 season and knew he was a fringe guy on the Eastern roster heading into 1995, so he decided to help out the new face in town.

“He knew he wasn’t going to pitch much and he was probably going to be the 13th pitcher, so he said ‘what the hell, I like baseball why don’t I just help and not play,’” Schmitz said.

So for two nights, Schmitz slept on Higgins’ couch until Eastern set him up with a place at Carlyle Apartments.

Schmitz said the first two weeks he got to work with his team all he had the players do was scrimmage. He wanted to see what he had and what he needed to teach for his team to adjust to his coaching style.

It was no smooth transition, as players had to continually stop what they were doing during the middle of scrimmages if Schmitz did not like what he was seeing.

Schmitz would bring the team in as a whole and teach. If he saw something else wrong, he would do the same thing.

One day, Schmitz simply told the team to go home.

“I was so frustrated because I had brought them in so many times and I brought them in and said, ‘just go home and there’s no practice tomorrow. Just get out of here. Go home. I’ll pick all of the things,’” Schmitz said.

But even through the frustrating scrimmages, less than desirable practice fields, which included taking ground balls on tennis courts and having three players quit before the season started, Schmitz coached Eastern to a 28-19 record that included a west division title in the Mid-Continent Conference.

“It was really neat to see that group of guys waking up and saying, ‘hey I’ll do it his way,’” Schmitz said. “They didn’t have to do that.”

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812 or asoto2@eiu.edu.