University of Houston Athletics
A Noble Beginning
1/26/2004 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Jan. 26, 2004
HOUSTON - With five consecutive NCAA Regional berths, three NCAA Super Regional championship game appearances and more than 300 victories on his resume, it is hard to imagine University of Houston baseball head coach Rayner Noble in anything but his current positions. However, that was not always the case.
As an award-winning playing career at UH and then professional in the Houston Astros organization, Noble gave little thought to a coaching career during his playing days. Only when injury forced him out of the game as a player did he entertain that thought, and even then it took some lucky timing to put the pieces into place that took Noble from a fresh, young assistant coach to the helm of his alma mater.
A three-year letterwinner from 1981-83, Noble put big numbers as a player and continues to rank among UH's all-time career leaders in several pitching and hitting categories. Following his senior year, he was drafted in the fifth round by the Astros ahead of such future Major Leaguers as John Smiley, Kevin Seitzer, Terry Steinbach, Mike Aldrete and Tom Pagnozzi.
As a minor league player, Noble wasted little time in rising through the organization and advanced to the Triple A Tucson Toros during the 1985 season. However, nagging arm injuries and a growing family made Noble reassess his goals and take his career into another direction just two years later.
"I was moving up and down in the Astros organization between Double A and Triple A. I was in Triple A in 1987 and they wanted to send me back down to Double A. I said enough is enough," Noble said. "When I went into professional, I told myself that if I wasn't in the big leagues by the time that I was 25 years old that I was going to get out. That is exactly what happened."
With his wife Lisa and then three-year-old daughter Hannah (Kelsey didn't come onto the scene until 1991), Noble put in a call to former UH head coach Dr. Bragg Stockton and asked if Stockton needed any help with the 1987 team. As it turned out, Stockton had an opening on his staff and hired his former player as an assistant coach/graduate assistant. While Noble's monthly stipend as a first-year assistant coach wasn't much, the job allowed him to finish his education and earn a bachelor's degree in management in 1988.
When fans watch the Cougars practice or compete at a game in 2004, there is little doubt that anyone but Noble is leading the program. However, as a first-year assistant coach, Noble was not in that position and that is the biggest difference that he sees between an assistant coach and the top man.
"As a head coach, you set policy. As an assistant coach, you implement the policy," Noble said. "As an assistant, you want to be a reflection of what the head coach is and make sure that you're doing what the boss wants."
Assistant coaches are often the liaisons between the head coach and the student-athletes. While no head coach tries to be aloof or distant with a wall between the players and the head coach, there must be some distance between both groups. As an assistant coach, Noble said he was more involved in the daily progress of his players.
"You are able to get closer and tighter with the players. As an assistant skill, you get the responsibility of dealing with the pitching or the hitting and you are more in the trenches with teaching. I enjoyed that. That is why I continued coaching. I like to teach the game."
Noble worked with Stockton and the Cougars for four years before moving across town to Rice, where he worked under Wayne Graham for another four years from 1991-94. When Stockton stepped down in 1994, Noble put his name into the hat and was rewarded with his first and only collegiate head coaching job.
But as exciting as it was to move from assistant coach to UH head coach in 1994, even that accomplishment was not without its difficulties for Noble. After settling into his role as an assistant coach under Stockton and Graham, now he had to discover his own personality as a head coach.
"It is a difficult transition, especially when you are young and don't have many years of experience," Noble said. "I was very fortunate to work with some very good head coaches, so I had good role models to draw on what I needed to do as a head coach. I took little pieces of what I learned under Bragg and pieces that I learned under Wayne (Graham) at Rice. What you do is blend it all into your own personality. That's what I fought early in my career. I tried to be one guy that I learned from too much and lost my own personality."
But even as a head coach, Noble admits that he continues to learn every day about his profession. As he looked back at his younger self as an assistant coach, he was quick to admit the one area in which he has changed the most through the years.
"As a young coach, I did not take players' feelings into consideration very often. As I have grown and learned, it is important to put yourself into the other person's shoes a little more and understand the things they are dealing with," Noble said. "We are dealing with young men that are learning every day. I remember myself in college and it's not an easy deal to be a student-athletes. As I have gotten older, I have been able to understand their plight a little better."
Noble and his Cougar team open the 2004 season at 11 a.m., Feb. 13 against Kansas State during the first day of the Minute Maid Park College Classic in Houston. For ticket information, call the UH Ticket Office at 713-743-9444.
