Just one week ago, former Cerritos College baseball player and head coach George Horton stepped down after 11 years as the head coach at Cal State Fullerton to assume the same position of the resurrected baseball program at the University of Oregon. Looking to fill the position with a former Titan, they also filled the position at Cal State Fullerton with another former Falcon baseball player and head coach, Dave Serrano. For the past three years, Serrano was the head coach at UC Irvine and led his Anteaters to the College World Series for the first time. They eliminated Cal State Fullerton at the College World Series.

    Horton, who spent the past 11 seasons at the helm of national power Cal State Fullerton and led the Titans to the 2004 National Championship, will serve as the Ducks’ 12^th baseball coach in school history and its first since the program was discontinued following the 1981 season. Oregon will start their program up in 2008, while Horton was signed to a five-year contract.

    Horton’s coaching career began as an assistant at Cerritos in 1976-77 and he then went to Los Angeles Valley College the following three seasons, where he coached with former Falcon teammate and Long Beach State coach Dave Snow. In 1980, he moved back to Cerritos as an assistant to Gordie Douglas before taking the head job in 1985. During his six seasons with the Falcons, he led them to three state championships and was named the National Coach of the Year in each of those seasons. He finished with a record of 226-53 (.810) from 1985-90 before moving to Cal State Fullerton, where he was an assistant under Augie Garrido before being named the head coach in 1996. In 1994, Horton was inducted into the California Community College Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He also was inducted into the Downey High School Hall of Fame in May of 2003 and was honored in 2005 with the Orange County Manager of the Year Award, given by the Orange Coast Chapter of the Society for Advancement of Management.

    Just as Horton will be doing at Oregon, Serrano brought immediate success to a UC Irvine baseball program that was dormant for two decades. Serrano took the job at UC Irvine after the Titans' fourth national championship to and he compiled a 114-66-1 (.633) record over three seasons and took the Anteaters to their first College World Series appearance in 2007. Their 47-17-1 season in 2007 earned Serrano National Coach of the Year honors from Baseball America, which had ranked him as the nation's top assistant coach in 2004 with the Titans. Serrano has signed a contract through the 2011 season.

    During Serrano's eight-year tenure at Fullerton, the Titans went 356-154-1 (.698) and were in the NCAA Tournament every season. They won six Big West Conference championships, four NCAA Regionals and four NCAA Super Regionals to earn four trips to Omaha. Serrano, who pitched for the Titans in 1986, began his coaching career as an assistant to Horton at Cerritos in 1988. He succeeded Horton for the 1991 season and led the Falcons to the South Coast Conference championship and was named the Coach of the Year. After coaching with the Falcons, he left to become associate head coach to Garrido at Cal State Fullerton. Serrano returned to assistant coaching duties for 1992-94 for the Falcons before going to Tennessee, where he served two seasons as pitching coach for Rod Delmonico. The Volunteers went 97-36 and made their first trip to Omaha in 44 years in 1995, when they were twice routed by Fullerton's third national championship team.