Rice Baseball 2-Day Winter Youth Camp #3
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One of the cornerstones of Rice’s rise to prominence in college baseball, José Cruz Jr. was named the 22nd head baseball coach at Rice on June 9, 2021. He became the Bixby Family Head Baseball Coach when the position was endowed through a gift by Bob and Betty Bixby in October of 2022.
In his first two seasons, Cruz expanded the Owls’ data-driven approach to player development through cutting-edge technologies while also spearheading efforts to maintain Reckling Park’s status among the elite baseball venues at the college level. The Owls’ home saw the introduction of a synthetic playing surface before the 2023 season and this year will see the installation of a new lighting system.
Cruz’s second season at the helm was highlighted by the breakout seasons of pitcher Parker Smith and shortstop Ben Royo. Smith earned first-team, All-Conference USA honors and an invitation to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team training camp after emerging as the Owls’ Friday night starter. Royo earned C-USA all-freshman honors after slugging 13 homers which matched Cruz’s 1993 total for the third most by a freshman at Rice. After the season, three Owls (Hayden Durke, Matthew Linskey and Justin Long) were selected in the MLB amateur draft, their highest number since 2019.
Cruz returned to the Owls from the Detroit Tigers, where he was in his first season with the club as a coach, focusing on hitting instruction and working with the outfielders under manager A.J. Hinch.
He is the first former Rice player to be named as the Owls head baseball coach since Harold Stockbridge, who lettered from 1946-48 and guided the program from 1949-52. He joins Efe Ustundag (Men’s Tennis) and Jon Warren (Men’s Track and Cross Country) as former student-athletes who now serve as head coaches at Rice.
Cruz’s association with Rice began in 1992 when he chose to remain home and sign with the Owls after leading Houston’s Bellaire High School to the top ranking in the country in 1992. The signing of the local standout, whose father, Jose Cruz Sr., remains one of the most popular players in Houston Astros history, was a turning point in legendary coach Wayne Graham’s efforts to attract top talent to Rice.
In his first season, Cruz shared national freshman of the year honors from Collegiate Baseball, and he earned All-Southwest Conference honors after driving in a school-record 59 runs. A year later, he was the consensus conference player of the year and first-team All-America, hitting .401 with 14 home runs and breaking his school mark with 68 RBIs. Cruz helped propel the Owls to the conference tournament, starting a streak that would last until 2021.
By 1995, Graham’s efforts had built the Owls into a potent force and the team qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the first time in history. Rice eliminated defending national champion LSU at the Tigers’ home field in Baton Rouge before falling to eventual College World Series champion Cal-State Fullerton.
In 1995, his final season at Rice, Cruz hit .377 in 1995 with 16 home runs and 76 RBIs and led the nation with 76 walks. Seattle made him the third overall pick in that year’s MLB Draft.
Less than two years later, on May 31, 1997, he made his major league debut with Seattle but was traded to Toronto at the trade deadline at the end of July. He went on to finish second to Nomar Garciaparra in the 1997 American League Rookie of the Year voting, slamming 26 homers and driving in 68 runs in a combined 104 games between Seattle and Toronto.
He played the next five years with the Blue Jays, twice topping 30 home runs and he became a member of the 30-30 Club in 2001 by slamming 34 homers and stealing 32 bases. He became a free agent after the 2002 season and signed with San Francisco where he helped lead the Giants to the playoffs, hitting .250 with 20 homers and 68 RBI while winning a Gold Glove after committing only two errors in 360 chances. He led National League outfielders by turning seven double plays and set a San Francisco record for the franchise with 18 outfield assists.
He went on to play five additional seasons with the Rays, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Dodgers and Padres before retiring as a member of the Houston Astros in 2008. While he was with the Astros, Cruz was reunited with a pair of former Rice teammates (Lance Berkman and Tim Byrdak), the first time three Owls were teammates at the major league level.
Hit .353 with a .476 on-base percentage over five games during the 2006 World Baseball Classic, helping Team Puerto Rico to the second round of play.
He batted .247/.337/.445 over his career, slugging 204 home runs, 252 doubles, and 36 triples, while also stealing 113 bases in 1,388 contests. Among the 181 players that had over 1,000 at-bats during the span of his career (1997-2008), Cruz Jr. stood out as having advanced speed, plate discipline, and fielding skills, ranking 32nd in walk rate (12.1%), 33rd in triples and 46th in stolen bases. Of the 24 players over that span who logged at least 11,000.0 innings in the outfield, he ranked No. 12 with a .986 fielding percentage after committing just 40 errors.
Cruz’s Houston baseball roots run deep. His father, Jose Cruz, remains one of the most beloved players in Astros history. He retired as the Astros career leader with 1,937 hits in 13 seasons and he currently ranks third behind Hall of Famers Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell. He finished third in National League Most Valuable Player voting in 1980 while leading the Astros to their first divisional championship and a memorable playoff series against Philadelphia. He was twice named an NL All-Star and won a pair of NL Silver Slugger Awards.
His younger brother Enrique followed him to Rice and was the starting second baseman on the Owls’ 2003 College World Series championship squad. After completing their playing careers, the two brothers returned to Rice to complete the requirements for their diplomas, which they received in 2013.
That same year, José joined the Major League Baseball Players Association’s player services department, where he remained until joining the Tigers’ coaching staff for the 2021 season.
Jose and his wife Sarah have three children, sons Trei and Antonio–who followed in their father’s footsteps to play at Rice–and a daughter, Alisa Loren, who attended SMU.
Trei was a three-year standout for the Owls from 2018-20 before being drafted by the Tigers in the third round of the 2020 MLB Draft. Antonio completed his collegiate career playing for his father in 2022.
Trei became the eighth member of the extended Cruz family to play professional baseball when he made his debut with the West Michigan White Caps in 2021.
Parker Bangs was named the Owls’ pitching coach on June 30, 2022
He joined the Owls after four seasons at Davidson, where his staff led the conference and finished eighth nationally with a 3.86 ERA. The Wildcats staff was led by senior Blake Hely, who earned A-10 Pitcher of the Year honors after posting a 9-1 record and 2.93 ERA while striking out 93 in 79.1 innings of action. He held conference hitters to a .170 batting average while surrendering a total of seven extra-base hits in 48 innings of work. Redshirt freshman Ryan Feczko was named the conference’s rookie of the year after going 10-0 in 15 starts along with a 3.21 ERA.
He joined the staff at Davidson after three seasons at Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C. Bangs led the Blue Hose to program-bests since moving to Division I, including 433 strikeouts, 16 saves, and a 4.32 ERA in 2017. The squad also allowed its fewest runs (321) and earned runs (258) since 2013 as the team recorded a D1-era best 32 wins. Under his guidance, the Blue Hose named two pitchers to the All-Big South squads. In 2016, his staff helped spark Presbyterian’s first-ever appearance in the Big South title game.
Bangs played collegiately at South Carolina from 2008-10 and was a member of the Gamecock’s 2010 College World Series championship team. In his three years with the Gamecocks, Bangs made 47 appearances on the mound, compiling a 7-5 record and striking out 94 in 74.2 innings. He also appeared in 81 games as a designated hitter and pinch hitter, posting a .301 career clip with 21 doubles, 10 home runs, and 60 RBI.
He was drafted by Kansas City in the 31st round of the 2010 MLB Draft, Bangs made 17 appearances over three minor league seasons before retiring after the 2012 season.
Bangs was the head coach of the Wilmington Sharks in the Coastal Plain League for two summers and spent three seasons as head coach of Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Columbia, S.C. He also served as the pitching/hitting coach for the Columbia Blowfish of the CPL, and as the hitting coach at Dutch Fork High School in Irmo, S.C.
Justin Aspegren is in his first season as an assistant coach with the Owls. He joined the program in the fall of 2023 as a Quality Control Assistant before moving into his current role in January of 2024.
Aspegren is entering his 17th year of coaching at the collegiate level, the last eight at Appalachian State where he served as an assistant coach and pitching coach from 2016-23.
During his time with the Mountaineers, his hurlers posted five of the top 10 season strikeout totals in school history, including a school record 459 last year as App State topped 30 wins for the first time since 2013. After moving to the Sun Belt Conference in the year before his arrival, the Mountaineers reached the SBS Tournament for the first time in 2019 and picked up their first tournament win in 2021.
Four App State players were drafted from 2017-2023: Matt Brill (12th, 2017), Colin Schmid (13th, 2018), Jack Hartman (4th, 2020), and Xander Hamilton (14th, 2023), as was catcher Chandler Seagle (30th, 2017) who made his MLB debut with San Diego in 2023. A fifth hurler, Kaleb Bowman, was signed by the Brewers as a free agent after the 2022 season.
Aspegren began his coaching career at Santa Barbara College where he was the associate head coach and pitching coach from 2008-2015. The Vaqueros won three Western State Conference titles (2011, 2012, 2015), reaching the Southern California Regionals in 2008, and from 2011- 2015. They advanced to the Super Regionals in 2011, 2014, and 2015 and to the Sectionals in 2014, and 2015.
Two of his pitchers were named Pacific Association Division All-American (Chris Joyce in 2011, and Kit Larson in 2014) with Joyce also being named the Southern California Pitcher of the Year. Four others were named to the Southern California All-State team (Zak Edgington in 2010, D.J. Gunderson in 2011, Tyler Gilbert in 2013, and Sean Barry in 2015.
A total of 16 former players were selected in the MLB draft and five others signed affiliate free-agent contracts. Gilbert made his MLB debut as a reliever in 2021 and later that season became the second player in major league history to throw a no-hitter in his first career start (August 14, 2021 for Arizona vs. San Diego).
Aspegren also coached for six years in the collegiate summer leagues and coached 31 players who reached the majors including former Owls Jon Duplantier and Glen Otto. He led the Santa Barbara Foresters, featuring Duplantier and former Rice teammates Ford Stainback and John Williamson, to the NBC national championship in 2014.
He is a 2007 graduate of UC Santa Barbara where he was a pitcher for two seasons after beginning his career at SBCC were he was a two-time., all-conference selection as a utility player who both pitched and played first base. He earned his Master of Science, in Exercise Science with a concentration in Sport Psychology from California University of Pennsylvania in 2013.
DC Arendas is in his second season with the Owls and his first as an assistant coach. He was promoted to assistant coach in January of 2024 after joining the staff in February of 2023 as Director of Player Development.
A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, and a graduate of the University of South Carolina, where he was a three-year starter and team captain, Arendas moved to Houston in 2018 to marry his wife, Elizabeth, and began working as a private baseball instructor and youth coach. He played one year of professional baseball in the Angels organization in 2019, splitting time between Burlington (Midwest League) and Inland Empire (California League) and was named Midwest League Player of the Week (May 6-12).
After his release from the Angles during the 2020 COVID shutdown of the minors, he founded and established the Houston Baseball Initiative, which champions the mission of supporting, developing, and training young athletes, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds.
In addition to his contributions to the Owls in 2023, Arendas initiated Rice Academy—a developmental program aimed at providing exemplary training to the youth baseball community in Houston by connecting the Rice players and staff to the local community.
He was ranked as the 10th-best high school prospect in the state as a senior by Perfect Game USA and was a three-time All-State selection before signing with South Carolina. He was a three-year starter for the Gamecocks, playing second, short, and third, and set the school single-season fielding record for second basemen. He was an All-NCAA Regional selection as a sophomore in 2014 and again as a senior in 2016 as he captained USC to an SEC East title and a berth in the Super Regionals. He was also a campus leader for Gamecocks 4 Christ, a gospel-based curriculum and team development program.
After graduating from South Carolina in 2016 with a degree in Sports Management, he interned with the Carolina Panthers in 2016 and was a member of the New England Patriots Equipment staff in 2017.
Arendas and wife Elizabeth are the parents of a daughter, Emersyn Grace.
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