GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida baseball coach Kevin O'Sullivan now has a home gym in his garage. It's the first place he visits every morning.
O'Sullivan used a two-month leave to change his daily routine and eliminate some old habits in hopes of finding “the best version of myself” heading into his 19th season in Gainesville.
“It's really that simple,” O'Sullivan said Friday, more than seven weeks after resuming his coaching duties with the Gators. “I feel rejuvenated. I feel great. I feel much, much more at peace, if that makes sense.”
O'Sullivan retired at the end of October to address undisclosed “personal matters.”
The Gators went through two interim coaches during their hiatus. They turned to associate head coach Chuck Jeroloman before he left to take a similar job at Tennessee. Florida then hired former Auburn coach Tom Slater as associate head coach.
O'Sullivan returned a week before Christmas and has been preparing his program for next weekend's season-opening series against UAB. The 57-year-old coach, nicknamed “Sully,” has led the program to 756 wins, 17 NCAA regionals, nine College World Series appearances, six SEC championships and the 2017 national title.
But his most recent season was far from the norm. In August, the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee issued a public reprimand to O'Sullivan for aggressive behavior and profane language directed at administrators at the regional site in Conway, South Carolina, two months earlier.
O'Sullivan was upset that the start time of his team's elimination game against East Carolina was moved back an hour. East Carolina's previous game had ended at midnight.
Videos of O'Sullivan's rant circulated widely on social media.
“I certainly wish I hadn't,” O'Sullivan said. “No one is more sorry than I am. The last thing I want to do is misrepresent Florida, myself or anyone else. I handled it poorly.”
Florida responded by suspending O'Sullivan for the first three games of the 2026 season, meaning he will have to watch the opening series from home.
“I certainly accept it,” he said. “As far as I'm concerned, I've made progress on that. That's a thing of the past for me.”
O'Sullivan's career probably depends on it.
He signed a four-year contract extension in January 2024 that raised his annual salary to $1.8 million and put him under contract through 2033. But there's no doubt the decision-makers in Florida won't tolerate another blowup in the future.
“You make a personal commitment to yourself,” O'Sullivan said. “That's what gets away from me sometimes. I get up every morning and I have my own routine and I make sure I have some personal time for myself, so I don't stagnate during the day and let one day slip away from the next.
“It's important. One of the things is that we all take care of ourselves first. And if we do that, then everything else will fall into place. It's really that simple.”
It's true that O'Sullivan has been too much of a perfectionist at times, and last year was a difficult season. The Gators dealt with a series of injuries and started 1-11 in the SEC before bouncing back to make the NCAA field.
Open this season with high expectations. Not only does he have a ranked team led by starting pitchers Liam Peterson and Aidan King, but he also now expects more from himself.
“Things can get away from me a little bit,” O'Sullivan said. “Last fall, in the end, was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do outside of losing my parents or other family members. But it ended up being the best thing that could have happened to me.”
