Across Indiana's eastern border, in the quaint college town of Oxford, Ohio, lies Miami University -- home to rich daddy's girls, birthplace of fraternities and former stomping grounds of mediocre Boston Celtics forward Wally Szczerbiak.\nIt's a cute little place.\nAnd IU Athletic Director Rick Greenspan seems to have fallen in love with it, or at the very least fallen in love with its coaches. He grabbed current IU football coach Terry Hoeppner from the Redhawks last January in an attempt to get the football team out of the Big Ten cellar. We all know how that one ended.\nBut in Coach Hep's defense, it's impossible to turn the Hoosier football program around in one year. That's like asking Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Mary-Kate Olsen to all put on healthy weight in a week; it's going to take more time than that. Although the team's win-loss record hasn't changed, Hoeppner made great strides with student attendance and boosting the squad's image. And if you were lucky enough to catch a leather jacket-clad Coach Hep during his WWE-style football team PR speech at halftime of the men's basketball game against Iowa this weekend, you were lucky. \nSimply put, he's the man.\nAfter the resignation of IU baseball coach Bob Morgan last June after 22 years at the helm, Greenspan again dipped into Redhawk nation, procuring the services of baseball coach Tracy Smith. In his nine years at Miami, Smith turned a basement-dwelling Mid-American Conference ball club into a competitive program by winning two MAC titles, appearing in six MAC title games and sporting a .590 winning percentage. Last season he led the Redhawks to a 45-18 season and a loss in the NCAA tournament to Texas, the eventual champions.\nSmith inherits an IU baseball team that had a woeful 9-23 record in Big Ten conference play last season. Can he turn this team around too?\n"Part of the rationale was, 'Hey, we know we can win here, it's been done,'" Smith told the IDS in a Feb. 7 article. "There's no reason to say we can't do it again."\nMuch like his football counterpart, Smith has come into the job with enthusiasm and a plan. Smith is much more media-friendly than Morgan, and two transfer players enter the mold for the Hoosiers this season -- Tad Reida, a redshirt sophomore from Wichita State University and Brett Sager, a redshirt freshman from Louisiana State University.\nThe baseball team's locker rooms are currently being remodeled, and Smith hopes to keep improving the team's facilities.\nThe jury's still out on whether Smith and Hoeppner can create winning teams here at IU. But the verdict is in on their effort, commitment and excitement for their respective squads. \nGuilty as charged.
'Other Miami coach' trying to resurrect baseball program
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