Why Missouri State baseball coach Keith Guttin says the 2024 season will be his last

With the dry sense of humor that he always has, Missouri State head baseball coach Keith Guttin smiled and laughed his way through a press conference Friday afternoon following the official announcement that the 2024 season will be his last.

The attention was on him when he typically prefers it not to be. A week after a national report that was confirmed by the News-Leader of his retirement, southwest Missouri's iconic baseball coach explained why he will step aside after his 42nd season as the Bears' skipper.

"It's time," Guttin said. "How do you know other than what your gut tells you? Mine is telling me, 'Yes.'"

Year 42 will mark the final chapter for the second head coach in the history of the Bears' program. He will leave a legacy of turning a mid-major baseball program into one that has been respected at the highest of levels.

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The second-winningest active head coach will add a few more to his 1,373 career victories. The former shortstop for the Bears who took over as head coach for Bill Rowe in 1983 will go down as one of the most iconic sports figures the university and Ozarks have ever had.

Guttin has produced 137 Bears, so far, who have signed professional contracts. Among those include six first-round draft picks and 21 who have gone on to play in the Major Leagues. There are countless others who didn't play professional ball, which Guttin takes pride in to this day.

Making sure the program was about the people he developed was something Guttin learned from Rowe, his longtime friend and former head coach and athletics director.

"The players come first," Guttin said as his eyes teared up. "That is what I've learned from him and hopefully what the next person will do as well."

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Guttin said he informed the 2024 Bears of his plan to retire on the first day of fall practice. The Bears were also transparent with recruits as they visited Springfield throughout the offseason and they were also informed of what might happen next.

The expectation is that MSU associate head coach Joey Hawkins will be promoted at some point with pitching coach Nick Petree remaining as the pitching coach. Missouri State said it will announce its plans for hiring Guttin's successor at a later date.

Guttin made it clear, without naming names, that he'd like to see a former player continue to lead the maroon and white.

"That's not my decision, but I support them 1000%," Guttin said when asked directly about Hawkins and Petree.

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Guttin said he hasn't spent much time reminiscing about the past and it likely won't happen until after the season. He said he's locked in the first game at Louisiana Monroe and the 2024 season as he has a promising roster around him. He laughed at his farewell tour around the Missouri Valley Conference, where he said some might want to give him the finger on his way out. Guttin knows some have wanted to say "goodbye" to him for a long time.

But when he was a 27-year-old in the same job, Guttin said he didn't think about the future. He thought about the next day. When a game ends, he's thinking about the next one. That's not going to be very difficult for him to do throughout his final games.

Guttin laughed when the Meador Park days were brought up along with the Bears' move to what was previously known as Price Cutter Park in Ozark. He thought about how thankful he was for Rowe and his relationship with the late John Q. Hammons to get Hammons Field built.

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"Things aren't as simple in the job as they used to be when I started," Guttin said. "There's just so much more that's involved. When you've been doing it this long and you're up there a little bit in age, it's just a little bit harder to keep up."

When the final out of the 2024 season is recorded and Guttin's 42-year career has come to an end, he won't wander very far. Springfield is his home and he'll hang around in the concourse on gameday, as Rowe has also done for all these years. Rowe won't have to sit alone anymore and the two will watch the third head coach in Bears history continue to build on the stellar legacy they left behind.

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"If you like where you're working with the people and you like where you're living, to me, that's the two most important things beyond attaching yourself to a certain name of an institution or making a little bit more money," Guttin said. "I've been fortunate with the people we've worked with. I met my wife when she was working at the university. All three daughters went to school here. We're pretty ingrained.

"I've been here since 1975. This is our home."

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or X at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the host of the weekly "Wyatt's World Podcast" on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State baseball coach Keith Guttin says why he's retiring