BRADENTON, Fla. — Pirates minor league catcher Jacob Stallings has a pretty good idea of how Pitt men’s basketball will look under its new head coach.
Sunday, Pitt hired Stallings’ father, Kevin, to replace Jamie Dixon as basketball coach after Dixon left for TCU. Kevin Stallings coached Vanderbilt the past 17 seasons. During the baseball offseason, Jacob Stallings helped his dad, working in the office and at practice compiling advanced statistics.
“Basically, I chart how we score, what plays we run, that sort of thing,” the younger Stallings said. “I do some advanced defensive stuff, too, how we box out or guard the ball, how teams score against us, that sort of thing.”
Kevin had traveled to Bradenton to spend time with Jacob when Pitt reached out and asked to interview him. Kevin left to interview, returned to Bradenton and flew back home Sunday night to Nashville, Tenn.. Jacob drove him to the airport after starting in a minor league game.
“The first thing I heard was that they wanted to interview him,” Jacob said. “That was surprising, just because I was surprised that Coach Dixon left in the first place, just because he’s been there for so long.”
Jacob, a seventh-round pick out of North Carolina in the 2012 draft, reached Class AA Altoona in 2015. He played more as the season progressed and hit .275 with a .313 on-base percentage in 292 plate appearances.
“It’s still pretty far away for me,” he said of possibly joining his father in Pittsburgh. “I never thought he’d beat me to Pittsburgh, but he did. It’s fun to think about, but, obviously, I’m just excited for him right now.”
Stallings said he is used to his father, who has been a head coach for 23 seasons, receiving public attention and criticism.
“It’s kind of all I’ve ever known,” he said. “He handles it well, basically because he doesn’t really look at anything. He’s good at keeping out the clutter. But it is hard hearing people say negative things about your dad.
“It’s harder on my sisters, I think, because they’re a little more emotional than I am. I have to calm them down sometimes. It has its negatives, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Tomlin in Bradenton
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is familiar with this portion of a season — the final week, the regular season in sight. When he spoke to the Pirates Monday morning at McKechnie Field, he told them not to sleepwalk through it.
“I just shared with the group one of my what I believe is an appropriate cliché for this time of year: Be where you are,” Tomlin said. “When you get toward the end of a training session, it’s human nature to pack your bags mentally and physically and sit them in the hallway.
“I always make a conscious effort not to do so. I try to squeeze every drop out of Latrobe that I can squeeze out of Latrobe, and I encourage these guys to do the same down here in Bradenton.”
Tomlin has visited the Pirates in spring training for a few years, and he and manager Clint Hurdle are friends. He has developed a good relationship with the players who have been here a while, especially reliever Jared Hughes, who he has joked about in the past as being a candidate to play tight end.
“He has the look of one, but that conversation might be a little too real considering that Heath [Miller] just retired,” Tomlin joked. “We haven’t been joking about it as much as we normally do.”
Tomlin said he takes his kids to Pirates games, which they view through a different prism than Steelers contests.
“If they see [Andrew McCutchen] or [Josh Harrison], those are sports stars,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a difference. Antonio [Brown] is just a guy that works with dad.”
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: March 28, 2016, 2:54 p.m.
Updated: March 29, 2016, 4:34 a.m.