FAYETTEVILLE — When veteran pitching coach Dave Jorn retired in 2016, Clay Goodwin became the Razorback baseball program’s last active bridge spanning the coaching eras of Norm DeBriyn and Dave Van Horn.
Goodwin, a Benton native, joined DeBriyn’s 2001 Razorbacks as a redshirting freshman. In 2002, Goodwin was Arkansas’ switch-hitting third baseman, batting .301 for a squad that eventually fell to Clemson in the NCAA Super Regionals.
Following DeBriyn’s retirement, Goodwin became Van Horn’s third baseman from 2003-2005, peaking in average (.332 in 2003) and power (5 home runs, 17 doubles and 42 RBI in 2005) but enjoying 2004 the most.
Goodwin hit .319 with 4 home runs and 32 RBI as Arkansas won the SEC West, shared the SEC overall title with East champion Georgia and advanced to Omaha for the first of Van Horn’s four times piloting Arkansas to the College World Series.
Goodwin has worked for Van Horn since then. He was a student assistant coach in 2006 and a manager in 2007, added a master’s degree in education to the kinesiology degree he achieved while a playing, and then became the Razorbacks’ first and only director of baseball operations.
Goodwin remains close to DeBriyn, still not completely retired from the Razorback Foundation positions that he has filled since retiring from coaching. Goodwin said he’s often asked to compare working for two Arkansas icons.
“I have been telling everybody this for years,” Goodwin said. “It’s a lot different, but it’s a lot the same. I know that’s kind of a weird way to describe it, but it is.”
Despite their different personalities, their fundamental roots remain. Van Horn was DeBriyn’s second baseman in 1982 and his graduate assistant from 1985-88, including two of DeBriyn’s four teams that advanced to Omaha.
“Coach DeBriyn still has such a fingerprint on our program because of all he’s done here,” Goodwin said. “And I think Coach Van Horn has a tremendous amount of respect for Coach DeBriyn. Coach D still comes down to the field quite a bit and it always lights up Coach Van Horn when he drops in and visits.”
DeBriyn’s building the baseball program from an independent playing on the fairgrounds field to a major power is one of Arkansas’ greatest success stories in any sport. Goodwin recalls feeling honored just to be recruited by DeBriyn.
“I still remember the morning he called me for the first time at home in Benton,” Goodwin said. “I can still remember my mom coming to get me and telling me who was on the phone.”
DeBriyn’s 1999 Razorbacks won the SEC, but had fallen on hard times in 2000 and when Goodwin redshirted in 2001.
So Goodwin is especially proud to have been a part of DeBriyn’s last hurrah when his Hogs won the 2002 NCAA regional in Wichita, Kan., and came oh so close at advancing to Omaha in the best-of-three super regional at Clemson, S.C. The Hogs beat Clemson 9-6, then lost 8-7 and 7-4.
“Man, we truly were a ground ball here or a hit there in the gap away from taking him to the College World Series,” Goodwin said. “We truly were that close to him being able to end his career at Omaha.”
Goodwin said redshirting in 2001 enhanced his appreciation of DeBriyn’s 2002 season.
“I was able to understand him a little bit more,” Goodwin said. “I could think back to that year when we started off pretty well, then fell off but came on strong. There were some pieces to the puzzle that came together at the end. It was a big credit to the way he changed his coaching style and adapted to us.”
What were DeBriyn’s adaptations in 2002?
“He kind of got laid back and allowed us to relax, and it made us play a little harder,” Goodwin said. “That was one of his best coaching jobs, I would think. It was, especially the second half of that year.”
Despite all the accolades DeBriyn achieved, his humility is legendary.
“He still jokes with me to this day about a big home run I was able to hit Friday night in Oxford when we swept them,” Goodwin said. “We got on a little roll right there and he tells me I saved his job to work at the foundation. He is a great man I have tremendous respect for.”
Enter Van Horn in 2003 with a similar SEC season to 2002 that ended in three NCAA Regional games in Austin, Texas, bookended by one-run losses to Lamar. It was followed by the banner 2004 season in which Arkansas went 45-24 overall and earned the SEC co-championship with a 19-11 mark.
The Razorbacks won the Fayetteville Regional with a doubleheader sweep of Wichita State — keyed by Brady Toops’ epic ninth inning-grand slam in the first game — then swept Florida State in the super regional to advance to Arkansas to Omaha for the first time since 1989.
“In my years of Razorback baseball, for me, that’s still No. 1,” Goodwin said. “Not the Omaha experience itself, because that was two and out (losses to Texas and Arizona). but the way we did it. An SEC championship that we were able to clinch at Baum Stadium and then the next weekend, that was the Brady Toops’ home run in the regional against Wichita State and we were able to win that at home. And then Florida State came out here with a very, very good team, but the fan support … there was a lot of momentum in our dugout. We just kind of rolled on through that super regional. That last month of baseball, being able to do it at home. That’s something as a player that you remember the rest of your life.”
How was the adjustment from DeBriyn to Van Horn?
“Any time there is a coaching change at this level, you are going to go through some growing pains and adjustments to each other,” Goodwin said. “But once you got to know Coach Van Horn and what he expected and the way he ran his program, there were a lot of similarities. They did things a lot different, but he still let you play the game, a lot like Norm did that last year. He made you relax and play the right way. And if you didn’t play hard, it was, ‘You are going to sit over here with me.'"
Goodwin marveled at how Van Horn assessed the strengths and weaknesses of what he inherited and the recruiting needed to blend a College World Series team in two years.
“That’s only a tribute to him being able to adapt to us and what he had coming in,” Goodwin said.
Undrafted after his senior season ended with two losses to Texas in the Austin Regional, Goodwin made a career decision to remain a Razorback.
“I had a couple of opportunities to play independent ball,” Goodwin said. “If I had been drafted by a pro team, I definitely would have given it a shot, but I thought, ‘I’m done and the last jersey I take off is going to be a Razorback jersey.’”
He wore the jersey for two more years as a student coach. Then, he shed it (but not Arkansas) to become director of baseball operations.
“We didn’t have the position and lot of the other schools were starting to create it,” Goodwin said. “He offered me the job and it’s been a real good experience for me and good for my family (wife Jill and their two children). Coach Van Horn is a great boss, a great man to work for and work with. I feel blessed.”
What Goodwin and his fellow operations directors do make it unfathomable that their jobs are relatively new. When new UA athletics director Hunter Yurachek asked for his job description, Goodwin said he replied, “I just help keep the Hogs rolling.”
He laughed and explained.
“I tell everybody I got my hand in a little bit of everything,” Goodwin said.
From scheduling, whether games or travel or coordinating home recruit visits, or as a liaison to academics, training, strength and equipment staffs and stadium management, the director of operations plays a part.
“It’s all about building relationships,” Goodwin said, whether it’s with personnel from other schools, businesses involved with the Razorbacks and, of course, the Razorbacks themselves.
“Of our players that moved on, I would say I’ve got 90 percent of their names in my phone,” Goodwin said.
During different portions of 2017, Goodwin said he spent time with Houston Astros Cy Young award-winning pitcher Dallas Keuchel and Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Logan Forsythe before the two former Razorbacks teammates clashed in the World Series.
“That was pretty special,” Goodwin said, “a pretty good World Series, too.”