Brosius gets ferocious about his Linfield AD gig

Former World Series hero Scott Brosius is beginning his second year as athletic director at Linfield, his alma mater (courtesy Linfield athletics)

McMINNVILLE — The Latin phrase “omne trium perfectum” would resonate with Scott Brosius.

That is, everything that comes in threes is perfect.

Brosius played his college baseball at Linfield. After an 11-year Major League career, he coached at his alma mater for 14 years, the last eight as head coach. After coaching stints with the Seattle Mariners and USA Baseball, he returned to Linfield last year as athletic director.

“It is my third circle back to Linfield,” Brosius says while sitting at his office in the Health, Human Performance and Athletics Building. “It feels really good to be back. Right place, right time.”

Brosius assumed the job as university vice president and athletic director in May 2024, taking over for Doug Hire, the school’s facilities director who had served on an interim basis for nearly a year. Hire replaced Garry Killgore, who was reassigned to an administrative role outside of athletics at the university after a group of alumni called for him to be fired and a third-party investigation followed.

“When I heard he decided he wanted the job, there was like nobody else you would hire other than Scott Brosius,” former Linfield baseball coach Dan Spencer says. “He is the perfect guy.”

Now Brosius — one of the most famed alums in Linfield history — has a year as athletic director under his belt. During the first year, suffice it to say, Brosius’ plate was full.

“We knew coming in it would be busy,” says Brosius, 59. “We had some coaching updates to make. We were trying to get our arms around updates with facilities. It has been great to be back on campus again, to be around student-athletes and the coaches. But it was definitely a busy first year on the job.”

Brosius carries major cred on the Linfield campus. If not for his three years as an excellent player for the Wildcats from 1985-87, certainly for his accomplishments at the big-league level with the Oakland A’s and especially the New York Yankees. Then there was the eight-year run as Linfield’s head coach, highlighted by a Division III national championship in 2013.

But for those who know Brosius, the most important attribute he possesses is his rectitude.

“Scott has integrity,” says Ad Rutschman, the legendary former football coach at Linfield who also served 24 years as the school’s athletic director. “He is principle-oriented, not ego-oriented. In the position of athletic director, character matters. It is not about him; it is about what is best for Linfield athletics. He is an outstanding leader of the athletic department and will continue to be — there is no doubt in my mind.”

Brosius played his final four Major League seasons with the Yankees, reaching the World Series all four years. New York won the first three, and Brosius was named MVP of the 1998 Series.

“If you didn’t follow baseball, you would never know by the way Scott carries himself,” says Steve Simmons, who will begin his 12th season as women’s soccer coach at Linfield this fall. “That is a hallmark of Linfield. You have a lot of folks here who are winners, but you would never know because of their humility.

“You see that combination with a lot of our coaches and past coaches, and you certainly see that with Scott. If anybody has ground to stand on to stick their chest out, it is him. But that is the last thing you would see from him. We got fortunate with a wonderful leader and more importantly, a wonderful person.”

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Brosius arrived on the Linfield campus in the fall of 1984 as “a 165-pound skinny kid, shaving just to say I could shave,” he says with a laugh. “I had so much growing up to do.”

He departed as one of the best players in Wildcat history, hitting .332 over three seasons, including .348 as a junior. Brosius credits coach Scott Carnahan with his development as a player and person.

“I have been so close with Carny over the years,” Brosius says. “I will never forget one of my first conversations with Carny as a pimpley-faced freshman. He asked about my goals. I said, ‘It is to play in the major leagues.’ He didn’t laugh. He didn’t snicker. He didn’t talk about the long odds.

“He said, ‘I will work as hard with you as you are willing to work for us and yourself. You have to do your part.’ Since then, he has been in my corner every step of the way.”

Carnahan, who retired in 2017, served 26 years as head baseball coach, eight years as an assistant coach under Brosius and 21 years as athletic director at Linfield. Carnahan preceded Brosius as head coach and succeeded him for two years after Brosius left for the Mariners’ organization. Carnahan preceded Brosius as AD.

“I think not just about playing for him, but about coaching with him and then following him as athletic director,” Brosius says. “The layers of our relationship and friendship went from player-coach to coach-coach to just friendship. He is truly the reason I am still here at Linfield.”

Brosius signed as a 20th-round draft pick of the Athletics in 1987. The right-handed-hitting third baseman, now bulked up to 200 pounds, spent four seasons working his way up the farm chain before making the A’s in 1991. He homered in his first big-league game, but didn’t stay in “the Show” for good until 1994. He was with the A’s for parts of seven seasons and never made the playoffs.

When Brosius was traded to the Yankees after the 1997 season for veteran pitcher Kenny Rogers, it was initially for cash and a player to be named later. That eventually became Brosius, who was called a “utility player” by the media at the time.

Some utility player. Brosius replaced future Hall of Famer Wade Boggs at third base with a bang, hitting .300 with 19 homers and 98 RBIs in the regular season while making the only All-Star Game of his career in 1998. He was a stalwart in the postseason, too, hitting .383 in 13 games, including .471 as the Yankees swept the Padres in the World Series.

It was in Game 3 that Brosius took center stage, hitting a solo homer in the seventh for New York’s first run, then delivering a three-run blast off future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman to give the Yankees a 5-4 lead they would not relinquish.

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In the offseason, the Yankees signed Brosius to a three-year, $15.75-million contract. He earned a Gold Glove for stellar defensive play in 1999, and in 2000 played in perhaps the most memorable World Series ever in New York — the “Subway Series” between the Yankees and Mets.

“Everybody in New York was talking about the Series that year, whether you were a Yankee or Met fan,” Brosius recalls. “The energy of the city was amazing during that time.”

I covered that Series for The Oregonian. I stayed in a Times Square hotel and commuted each day to Yankee Stadium or Shea Stadium for games and off-day media availabilities. It was one of the most fun assignments of my career. I did a couple of features with Brosius, who was more than accommodating to a hometown writer, as the Yankees won in five games.

Brosius got a hit in four of the games and batted .308 in the Series, including a solo homer in Game 2, a 6-5 Yankee victory. The next year, he provided one more bit of late-game theatrics in the 2001 Series. With the Yankees trailing 2-0 and down to their final out in the ninth inning of Game 5, Brosius’ two-run shot tied the score on the way to a 3-2 victory. Arizona came back to win the final two games and claim the Series, however, and Brosius retired after the season.

Brosius played all four years in New York for Joe Torre, who ranks fifth in the MLB career list with 2,326 wins, behind only Connie Mack, Tony La Russa, John McGraw and Bobby Cox.

“Joe was a players’ manager,” Brosius says. “He commanded respect for who he had been as a player, but moreso for how he treated players (as a manager). He was a great buffer in New York. The Boss (owner George Steinbrenner) was an overwhelming presence. It is a city that is alive. There were a lot of distractions out there. Joe treated everybody with respect, like a person. In the pressure cooker of New York, he was a calming influence. He allowed me to be me and made my time with the Yankees a very positive, comfortable experience.”

Brosius puts two experiences above the rest as highlights during his MLB career.

“I think about the first game in the big leagues,” he says. “It is something you can’t forget. That is what you dream about doing your whole life, and there you are, playing in that first game. No question that was big. “Every World Series was special for its own reason, but the ’98 Series stands out. The MVP piece was icing on the cake, but the first time going to a World Series made all those backyard dreams come to fruition.”

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Brosius was the starting third baseman for four straight New York Yankee World Series teams, winning three, and was the 1998 Series MVP (courtesy Linfield athletics)

Through his MLB career, Scott, wife Jennifer and their children made their home in McMinnville. Brosius returned in 2002 as an assistant coach under Carnahan, a position he held for six years. In 2007 he and Carnahan switched seats, and Linfield baseball enjoyed its most successful run in history. Under Brosius, who was named Northwest Conference Coach of the Year five times, the Wildcats went 270-95 overall and 161-47 in league games, the latter a 77.4 winning percentage. They placed third in NCAA Division III in 2010 and won the national championship in 2013.

“We had some near-misses, too,” Brosius says. “You get close and have disappointments. We were in the Series a few times, and (in 2010) we felt we were the best team there but lost a tight, funky game in the semis.

“But in a lot of ways, (winning the national title) was better as the coach of that team than as a player. A player winning a World Series is like pure joy. With a coach, you feel good for everybody for what we did. This was the players’ moment. To play a part in it, and to watch them dogpile after the final game, and the celebration on campus — it felt bigger and more fulfilling.”

After the 2015 season, Brosius departed for the Mariners’ organization. In 2016, he was a coach at Triple-A Tacoma. The next two seasons he served on the coaching staff in Seattle.

“I am grateful to the Mariners for the chance to step away from the college side,” Brosius says. “I needed to see if that was the route I wanted to go, with the possibility of coaching or managing at the big-league level. To get that opportunity in Seattle was a great experience.

“But I recognized the lifestyle and travel was not the world I needed to be in long term. Ultimately, I felt like there was a better place for me to be.”

Temporarily, that was with USA Baseball. In 2019, he became director of player development for the organization.

“I was in charge of the Prospect Development Pipeline (PDP league), helping to develop high school players for national teams but also for college and pro baseball,” Brosius says. “I coached our U18 team and was in charge of all the different levels, from U12 to U14 to women’s baseball. The idea was that it was all under the umbrella of USA Baseball, so all levels were doing things the same way.

“The part I loved was the teaching element of it. USA Baseball brought that element. It was attractive to me.”

Brosius was also head coach of the professional team that in 2019 participated in the qualifying tournament for the 2020 Olympics. He was slated to manage the team during the Tokyo Games, which got delayed a year because of Covid. By the time Tokyo hosted the Games a year later, Brosius had opted out of the position. His time with USA Baseball had ended.

“I like being around my family,” he says. “Being on the road a lot and in hotels by myself wasn’t for me.”

Brosius returned home and did some things he had never done before with Jennifer. Their children are spread throughout the country — Megan in Florida, David in Texas and Allison in Myrtle Point in southern Oregon. Together, they have provided their parents with six grandkids.

“We did some traveling,” Scott says. “We took our (Mercedes) Sprinter camper across the country three times. It was a lot of fun.”

But by 2024, “I knew if there were an opportunity for ‘next,’ whatever that looked like, it was time to go back to work,” Brosius says.

“We wanted to stay connected to McMinnville,” he says. “When the Linfield job came up, it felt like it might be a good fit.

“It turned out to be the right place, right time. There was a need. I hoped that I could fill that need. And a need for me, too. I was looking for ‘next.’ I wasn’t looking to be permanently retired.”

The important thing, Spencer emphasizes, is that Brosius is in a position he wants to be.

“When you don’t need the paycheck and decide to do it anyway? ‘Bro’ is committed,” Spencer says. “He is locked and loaded. He brings the same work ethic and passion he did to playing and coaching as he does to the AD job.”

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Brosius spent eight years as baseball coach at Linfield, guiding the Wildcats to the 2013 NCAA Division III championship (courtesy Linfield athletics)

Among Brosius’ moves during his first year as AD were the hiring of new coaches in basketball and baseball.

Former Whitworth assistant Elijah Gurash is the new basketball coach, replacing Levi Sieg, who was 15-35 overall and 7-25 in Northwest Conference play during his two seasons at the helm. Gurash, 46, was most recently an assistant at Division III Buena Vista in Storm Lake, Iowa. This is his first head-coaching job.

The new baseball coach is Jordan Harlow, who played for Brosius on the 2013 championship team. Harlow, 34, was a Linfield assistant for nine years, the last six under predecessor Dan Spencer. He was also head coach when David Brosius played at McMinnville High.

“When you are making a hire, your job is to find the right people,” Scott says. “That is something that Ad Rutschman always stressed. I have learned a lot from him over the years, and he talks about that a lot.

“With our basketball team, that is Elijah. He is the right person for this job. He is knowledgeable and mature and he has been around winning programs. Being around success matters. When Dan decided to step away (from the baseball job), Jordan was ready. He is the right guy, a Linfield guy who understands the tradition and what Linfield baseball has been and can be.

“At the D-3 level, both of these guys will connect with the student-athletes. This is not D-1 sports. We want kids to come here to be connected for their four years here. We want their full student-athlete experience to be something special.”

Then there is Linfield football, which Brosius calls “the front door to our university.” From the eras of Paul Durham to Rutschman to Ed Langsdorf to Jay Locey to Joe Smith, the Wildcats have amassed a collegiate record 68 straight winning seasons.

“We are known for the streak and for the national championships we have won,” Brosius says. “I would like to think that is only part of our legacy. It is one thing to have success. It is another to do it the right way. Linfield athletics does things the right way. That is what I am most proud of — not just that we win games, but how we go about it.”

Financial times are tough at colleges throughout the country. Linfield is no different. Cuts have been made in many departments on the Linfield campus, including athletics. No sports have been cut, but budgets have been trimmed.

“I have always believed that if you are going to do anything, you do it with excellence,” Brosius says. “Our challenge is, can we continue to do this? Part of that is funding. We have great support. We have a great donor base. We have nice facilities, but some of them are aging. We have to update, and those things are on my mind. We have a basketball court that’s 40 years old. The football turf has only so many years in its life. And the track, too. At the same time, where can we not only update but drive forward and offer more?”

On July 1, a new era began at Linfield. It was the first day of new university president Mark Blegan, who had been provost and vice president at Carroll College, a 3,300-student liberal arts school in Waukesha, Wisc.

Blegan has an interest and a background in sports. He is a former assistant football coach at Mount Union at Alliance, Ohio. The Purple Raiders have won 13 NCAA Division III championships.

“We are excited about president Blegan,” Brosius says. “He was the one among the candidates who stood out. He has an athletic background and has been a presence with our coaches already. He has already shown great leadership early on. He sees the whole picture — the academic piece and where we have to go as a university, and also understanding the importance of Linfield athletics and what it means to this campus.”

Brosius says about 45 percent of Linfield’s student body of about 1,700 participate in athletics. Football has 135 players; both soccer teams have rosters of about 45.

“The footprint of athletics on our campus is huge,” Brosius says. “It is a big part of who we are at Linfield. Our rosters are growing. That is the challenge — to have the budget to reflect those growing numbers.”

Simmons believes the timing of the hires of Brosius and Blegan was serendipitous.

“To have Scott come in and move us forward with a new president is a good thing,” Simmons says. “President Blegan is an academic, but he is athletics-oriented. He and Scott see a lot of things the same way. They are the pillars of what we stand for at Linfield. Guys like Carny and coach Rutschman, who have been in that (AD) chair in the past, have the lineage of being hard workers, good people, winners. That is what we have in Scott in this iteration. We are all pretty excited.”

Brosius’ administrative duties have dominated his time throughout the first year on the job.

“Scott was drinking from a fire hose last year, spending a ton of time in meetings,” says Kelly Bird, Linfield’s long-time sports information director who has moved into a position as athletics marketing and events director. “But he handled it well.”

“That VP title gets him in some of those meetings he would rather not be in,” Spencer says with a laugh. “One thing he wants to do more is work with student-athletes and coaches. As a mentor of coaches and a guy who men or women players of any sport can talk to, what better guy than Scott?”

Brosius would also like to spend more time with his grandchildren.

“This past year, I missed out on a lot of trips to see them,” he says with a smile. “We knew Year One would be a little nuts, as we played catchup and so many of us learned our new jobs. Hopefully in Year Two, we will be more settled and can have a little of that balance.”

Brosius looks fit and trim — he is down from his playing weight with the Yankees — due in part to early workout sessions.

“Jennifer and I start rolling over to the gym at about 5:30 (a.m.) and get our workouts in,” he says. “I skipped some of that in Year One. The nature of being a D-III athletic director is always going to be that way, though. You have your responsibilities on campus Monday through Friday and you have games on weekends. It is a seven-days-a-week job once we get going in the fall. It is going to be busy.”

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