After 1,142 games and 27 seasons, the Fairfield University baseball team has a new coach.
John Slosar, who has won over 400 games as the leader of the Stags, has officially retired from the position. He has been the Stags’ skipper since 1985 and has led his squads to 13 twenty-win seasons.
Over the course of his career he has amassed a pair of MAAC Coach of the Year awards, including being named the recipient of the 2011 Jack Butterfield Award, an honor that is presented annually by the NEIBA.
In the long marathon that was Slosar’s career, he sprinted to the finish line as the 2011 Stags earned 22 wins, the most by any Fairfield team since 2000.
Slosar came to Fairfield after a successful college career where his play earned him national attention. He led his UCONN Huskies to a fifth place finish in the 1972 College World Series, while hitting .400 in Omaha.
After graduating with a degree in sociology, Slosar spent a year in the New York Mets farm system, but never was granted the honor to play in the big leagues.
After leaving baseball, he knew his playing days were over and after taking a few years to clear his head he decided to enter the new step of his life: coaching.
Little did he know that this stage would last over 35 years with the same collegiate team. After all, he had said he had to be talked into coaching the Stratford legion team, which he eventually accepted and began coaching his hometown squad.
Then it was 1975.
The US President was Gerald Ford, the price of gas stood at a miniature .57 cents, and the Oscar went to the Jack Nicholson’s great “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. It was also the year when John Slosar was named the assistant coach of the Stags, a position that he would keep for 10 years.
He was then promoted to become the manager of the baseball program and saw immediate success by leading Fairfield to a 20-15-1 record, only the third 20 win season in school history.
The John Slosar era had officially begun. This period in Fairfield history saw the team win a MAAC Championship, four MAAC South titles and six ECAC playoff appearances.
Now 35 years later, the United States has their first black president, the average price of gas has risen to a skyscraping $4.00 and “The King’s Speech” took home the hardware in the Oscars, a movie where the leading actor was only 15 when Slosar’s coaching career started.
After his extended stay, Slosar knew it was time to call it quits. Before the 2011 campaign, Slosar decided to hang up his cleats. He says that it wasn’t the game of baseball that he grew tired of, but more so the mundane tasks as a coach such as the paperwork, office work, and traveling.
The reins have now been given off to Bill Currier, who just finished his first season as associate head coach and was formerly the 22 year head coach of the Vermont Catamounts.
As for Slosar, he will go down as the winningest coach in Fairfield history with over 400 career victories. After 35 years, 1,142 games, 2 MAAC Coach of the Year titles, the John Slosar era is officially over.
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