New UA assistant Trip Couch’s coaching journey takes him back to Tucson | Arizona Wildcats Baseball

Trip Couch, UA’s new assistant baseball coach, arrives in Tucson after serving coaching positions in Houston and South Carolina and a job hunt for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Kelly Presnell, Arizona Daily Star

Chip Hale and Trip Couch met in 1999. USA baseball was then based in Tucson. Hale, whose playing career ended in 1997, supported the coaching team USA. Couch was part of the staff.

What began as a working relationship developed into a friendship over the next two decades. As soon as he rose to the ranks of professional baseball, Hale Couch swore that if Hale was ever to become the head coach in Arizona, he would invite Couch to join the team.

“I know him as a talent assessor,” said Hale, who coached the Wildcats earlier this month. “I saw what he did with the players we have in Arizona. (Couch spent more than eight years as a scout with the Diamondbacks, which Hale later became a manager for.) I saw the college kids he got and the way he got a class that covers the whole field. He knows the kind of players I like. “

Hale kept his promise by hiring Couch, 54, as a full-time assistant. But the idea still had to be sold … to Couch’s wife, Tiffany.

“My wife grew up in Baton Rouge,” says Couch. “She’s been in the South or Texas all her life. She is used to grass. I’m a big lawnmower guy. This is kind of my stress reliever. She says: ‘There is no grass to mow.’ “

Couch – who has trained in Louisiana-Lafayette, Houston, Texas, and South Carolina for the past four seasons – then peered over his shoulder at the lush lawn of Hi Corbett Field.