Florida Head Coach Tim Walton has achieved the rare feat of winning a National Championship in one sport as a player while winning another in a different sport as an assistant coach and head coach.

Walton was born in Southern California and attended Cerritos High, where he was a standout baseball player. He later earned a scholarship to the University of Oklahoma, where as a pitcher he led the Sooners to the 1994 National Championship.

Three months ago almost to the day, he led the Gators to the program’s first national title after making the championship game twice before (2009 and 2011).

After playing in the Philadelphia Phillies minor-league system for two years, Walton felt ready to make the jump to coaching. Followinga short stint in baseball, he went back to his alma mater where in 2000 he was part of a National Championship team as a hitting coach on Patty Gasso’s staff.

After four years in Norman, Okla., Walton got his first head coaching job at Wichita State in 2003 and was there for three seasons before taking over in Gainesville.

The Gator head coach has applied his success on the baseball diamond and taken it to the softball field. I spoke with him this morning about his background and other topics related to the Gators and softball overall and was impressed with his passion, candor and perspective. Here’s the first of two parts of that conversation… the second will be posted tomorrow.

***

FullCountSoftball.com: Not many people can say they stood on the mound in a title game and helped a team win a National Championship… describe that memory and how it impacted you.
Tim Walton: That was a huge turning point in my life and something that will be one of the highlights of my life forever. I had been a starter most of my college career and started almost every time I was scheduled to pitch. What I remember most is going into the warm-up process as a relief pitcher. My first appearance in the series against Arizona State, I was everywhere with my throws—I think more balls went into the field of play than into the catcher’s mitt! I came into the final game when the score was something like 4-4 and I threw a shutout inning, then our team scored some runs, I pitched another shutout inning, we scored some more and then I pitched another two-thirds of an inning and gave up a run, but we won. I It was really a special feeling. It was also the most people I had pitched in front of–about 24,000 people. I have a great picture of me jumping through the air into the dogpile with my teammates.

FCS: So how did you go from baseball to softball?
TW: I was in the Phillies’ organization for two years and got released in 1997 after my second spring training. I had other opportunities to continue to play, but I saw the writing on the wall. Plus, my arm hurt all the time—not just one day, but everyday–and I had already had Tommy John surgery, so I felt it was time to get out. I wanted to coach and my first baseball coaching job was in Alaska coaching for a summer-league team there. I was then hired as an assistant coach at Cypress (Calif.) College, but the same week I had an opportunity to go to Oral Roberts, and I was there a year and a half. In January of 1999, I was called by Patty Gasso at Oklahoma and she asked me to come in as an assistant.

FCS: What was it about your abilities as a baseball player that attracted you to Coach Gasso?
TW: I have a lot of organizational skills, almost to a fault. I have a pretty good background where I liked to organize things, be it recruiting letters, videos, or batting practices. She gave me baseball skill responsibilities like hitting, and saw that I had a good relationship with hitters. They were doing well and getting better and Patty recruited some great hitters, so she gave me 100 percent of the hitting responsibilities. We made some strides and she gave me the title of Hitting Coach. A year and a half later we had broken every team batting record and won the National Championship against UCLA.

FCS: What is your relationship with Coach Gasso today?
TW: It’s more of a business relationship. She’s always been good to me and gave me a ton of respect and compliments publicly, which I’ve always appreciated. I’ve learned a ton from her on how to run a program, like how she doesn’t tolerate gossip or girls talking behind each other’s backs. I feel we both respect each other greatly and have a good business relationship.

FCS: As a coach, what was the biggest adjustment transitioning from baseball to softball?
TW: I think one of the biggest fallacies – and I was guilty of this as well – is you coach a team the same way. I’ve really seen how important it is to develop players. I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned within the last three years is more on the relationship side of things, getting the players to trust and understand me, and increasing my understanding of them. My biggest focus has probably been to improve the chemistry of the athletes. One of my players told me that for females, “She has to look good to play good.” That includes everything from the uniform being just right to putting on the make-up before a TV game and we’ve built all of that into our pregame rituals.

FCS.com: Having won a National Championship as a player, an assistant coach and now as a head softball coach, how do they compare?
TW: Being a player and an assistant coach is very similar; you feel complete jubilation after putting in all the work. For the head coach, though, it’s different—it’s your program, and it was more of a sense of relief. I remember there was very little excitement, and as I look back, I remember the exhaustion! The great thing about coaching is you have the opportunity every year to work with a great group of people and you go out and do your thing. I know as a player I felt a little cocky having won a title, but as a head coach it was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I’ve never been one who’s a headline reader, I’ve always been a builder and a worker, so now when someone congratulates me it’s like a “nails on the chalkboard” feeling. I’ve gone back to work differently than in the past. Before, when we’d lose, I’d be pissed and have something to shoot for. Now, I admit I went into a little bit of a hole, I was kind of reserved, and I have to get the bounce back in my step. I took a look around me and realized what an unbelievable accomplishment this all was and now with school back in session and off-season training I feel it will come back and we’ll be ready soon to compete again.

Check in Wednesday for the second part of the interview with Coach Walton