OMAHA, Nebraska – Link Jarrett is sitting in the lobby of the Embassy Suites in Omaha, fiddling with his hat and trying to explain that he's really not as intense as he seems, at least not always. A guy who handles his media duties has already checked in on Jarrett's table, armed with an excuse to get him out of the interview if he wants to leave. Jarrett, after all, is very busy this week. His Florida State Seminoles are back in the Men's College World Series.
But Jarrett wants to move on. He's talking about baseball, about life and youthful intrusion, and how it all fits into where he is now.
It's Thursday afternoon, a day before Florida State saw a three-run ninth-inning lead evaporate in a 12-11 loss to No. 1 Tennessee, and Jarrett's life is full of twists and turns. emotional turns.
He's the coach who left a beloved job at Notre Dame to return to his alma mater two years ago, only to be the first captain in 76 years to fail to produce a winning season. He's also the guy who has the Seminoles back in the MCWS a year later.
Florida State has come to Omaha 24 times and still hasn't won it all. This eats away at Jarrett, to the point that he relives minutiae of the game from three decades ago, when he was a player at FSU. He thinks about the inches that separated him from being hit in the middle, the instincts that failed him. He thought about it shortly after arriving in Omaha on Wednesday.
“But it's not like I'm possessed by it,” Jarrett said. “No, I know it's there. It's not luggage. It's like, are you better? What instruction can you give me?” [the infielders] and make sure you learn from what happened? I have to learn from these things. And after some of the achievements, you also learn from them, and from the battles and tenacity of the children.
“But when your goal is to achieve it, sometimes you think, 'Why didn't I do it?'”
Florida State is the eighth seed and now needs to win four elimination games for a spot in the championship round, but those who know Jarrett believe it can be done. They know the stories that have defined him.
JARRETT GROWN UP two blocks from Dick Howser Stadium in Tallahassee. When he was about 13 and the Seminoles were on the road, he would climb a fence, sneak into the stadium and play ground balls.
He would go with Dean Palmer, a future MLB player who was three years older. Jarrett would throw a bucket of balls over the fence and they would run down the field. Once, when Jarrett was throwing batting practice without a screen, Palmer hit a liner toward the mound. He broke the cube. The guys even had the nerve to use the batting cages, until FSU put in a new chain and lock.
But Jarrett didn't do it for the comforts of college; He was there because he dreamed of wearing garnets and gold.
“That's all I wanted to do,” he said. “I waited and waited, and you know recruiting was a lot different. You're at a game and you're just waiting for someone to show up at your Legion game, like some coach. It was hard to send VHS tapes to everyone.
“You were just hoping someone would come see you.”
Jarrett, 5-foot-10 and just under 160, eventually received offers from Mercer and West Florida, but was still waiting at Florida State. In the summer after his senior year, FSU coach Mike Martin invited him to the baseball offices.
Martin wanted to be realistic with Jarrett, because they had already signed a college player to play shortstop. He told Jarrett that he could come to Florida State but that he probably wouldn't play.
His father Lincoln, a former FSU player, was director of budget policy for the state of Florida. For 40 years, he rode his bike to work. He also towed a baseball field with his Volkswagen Rabbit. Lincoln Jarrett was silent at that meeting, saying only one thing.
“Coach, he will play.”
Jarrett started four seasons, played in three Men's College World Series and was an All-American. To this day, he still holds the NCAA all-time assists record with 802.
IN THE SPRING In 2023, Martin, the most successful coach of all time in Division I baseball history, was battling Lewy body dementia. But Martin was there for FSU wide receiver legend Buster Posey's retirement jersey ceremony.
Longtime FSU staff member Chip Baker led Martin onto the field. As Baker turned and walked away, Martin asked, “Where are you going?”
“Link is here,” Baker told Martin. “Are you OK.”
Jarrett calls Martin, who died in February, a second father figure. Martin taught him how to play college baseball and coach college baseball. On a van ride from Charles Schwab Field to the team hotel last week, Jarrett treated a couple of his players to a Martin impersonation when his former mentor wanted to make a point.
“If there's one thing you remember,” Jarrett said, his country accent deepening, “it's this.”
Jarrett estimated that Martin said it in reference to at least 100 things.
He remembers them all and said he can hear Martin's voice in “every different step of his being.”
He made a point of trying to spend time with his mentor during his final days.
“Don't leave anything on the table,” he said. “Some people didn't want to go see it in the last few weeks. I did. So when you leave it on the table and people know how you feel, you can get through it. I think it's the unfinished experiences that sustain you.” People recoil more in those situations. [his wife] Carol was suffering and I knew how difficult it was.”
Florida State has a “tradition room” with a television dedicated to Martin's story. An athlete can press the game and listen to Martin's life story.
Coaches and players called Mike Martin “11” because of his uniform number. Two weeks after his death, Florida State opened the 2024 season against Butler at Mike Martin Field. The Seminoles won 11-0.
HE LIKES CHIP BAKER to go on 7 a.m. bike rides, and in 2023, his first year on Jarrett's staff, his phone was ringing a lot in those early morning hours. Baker eventually decided to change his ringtone to Jarrett's number so she wouldn't miss any of his calls or texts.
“From the moment you wake up,” Baker said, “to the moment your head hits the pillow, it's all about the details.”
Jarrett wanted to make sure that during games, the water cooler was in the middle of the dugout so players wouldn't have to go to the end of the dugout to get water between innings.
FSU infielders Daniel Cantú and Alex Lodise said Jarrett scripts their practices, sometimes even timing their throwing window.
“He always preaches that we are a machine,” Cantú said. “Every little thing has to work and every little detail is important to make this train and that machine work, and that's just who we are. We're programmed to do the task at hand.”
Jarrett, who inherited a young team in his first season, turned over almost the entire roster in 2024. Cantú said it was almost easier to integrate into his new team because almost everyone was in the same boat.
“You're kind of forced to discover it to learn and get to know everyone,” Cantú said. “It forces you to create that team chemistry and be as close as possible. Honestly, we created great team chemistry. We're like a family. We love each other and appreciate playing together.”
IT'S LATE THURSDAY late, and Jarrett is talking about the six hours of sleep he gets a night (11 p.m. to 5 a.m.) when he stops.
“Now you're going to think I'm crazy…” he said.
“I saw something in practice that I keep coming back to. So the next day, I'm so ready to attack him that my director of [baseball] operations [Sean Guite] – he's from Huntington Beach. I said, 'I want this to be perfect.' I want the cages to be perfect, I want the bullpen mounds taken care of. [to be perfect] …as if it owned me.
“And he asked me, 'Did you ever think that maybe it wasn't possible for everything to be perfect?' And I said, 'Sean, you're probably right.' But the search… I always find something that lights me up, focuses you, keeps you hungry.”
