Cliff Gustafson

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Cliff Gustafson is a former college baseball coach who was for twenty-eight seasons the head coach of the University of Texas at Austin Longhorn baseball team. During this time he became the most successful head coach in NCAA Division I baseball history, a record relinquished in 2005 to his successor as UT baseball head coach, Augie Garrido.

Gustafson is a native of Kenedy, Texas, and played baseball at UT, including the 1952 team that won the Southwest Conference championship and reached the College World Series. After briefly playing baseball professionally, Gustafson coached at South San Antonio High School for fourteen seasons, winning seven Texas state championships.

In 1968, Gustafson took a pay cut to coach the team at the University of Texas at Austin. While there, he led the Longhorns to twenty-two Southwest Conference Championships, a record seventeen College World Series appearances, and two national championships (1975 and 1983). His players included Roger Clemens, Spike Owen, now bench coach for the Round Rock Express (AAA), Keith Moreland, former Chicago Cubs catcher and outfielder, and Brooks Kieschnick, an inaugural member of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame.

Gustafson was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. He was named National Coach of the Year in 1982 and 1983. He retired in 1996. Gustafson was named an inaugural member of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame.

Since his retirement, Gustafson divides his time between his home in Austin, Texas and his ranch in Cameron, Texas.