GAINESVILLE — Gators baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan enters his 19th year at Florida rested, ready and renewed after a season-ending tirade led to a three-game suspension, and a personal leave of absence provided a fresh perspective.
A College World Series winner and NCAA Tournament regular, O’Sullivan is one of his sport’s top coaches.
The 57-year-old now strives for something even more elusive and meaningful than success in the nation’s top baseball conference.
“I’ve tried to do the best I can, as far as to put myself in a position to be the best version of myself standing here in front of you guys or the team,” O’Sullivan said Friday, a week before the No. 22 Gators open the 2026 season. “It’s really that simple.”
O’Sullivan spoke for the first time since he experienced the lowest point — save for the deaths of his mother and his father — of a Hall of Fame career.
“Last fall at the end was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do,” he said. “But it ended up being the best thing that could have happened. I feel rejuvenated. I feel great. I feel much, much more at peace.”
O’Sullivan is eager to make up for lost time, though he’ll have to miss his team’s season-opening series Feb. 13-15 against UAB at Condron Family Ballpark in Gainesville.
“I will probably be — well, not probably — I will be at home,” he said with a dose of contrition.
O’Sullivan has accepted the consequences of actions he deems regrettable during the NCAA Tournament’s Conway Regional at Coastal Carolina.
Known for his fiery temperament, O’Sullivan unleashed a profanity-laced tirade on June 1 prior to the Gators’ season-ending 11-4 loss to East Carolina University.
O’Sullivan berated an on-site staff member while using more than a dozen expletives during a 47-second video of the incident. Florida’s coach was upset that officials moved his team’s elimination game with ECU from noon to 1 p.m. because the Pirates’ loss to host Coastal Carolina did not end until close to midnight.
“I certainly wish I didn’t do it. No one feels more regretful than I do,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is misrepresent Florida or myself, or anybody. I handled it poorly. I did what I needed to do, as far as apologies.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve moved forward on that. That’s in the past for me.”
O’Sullivan’s behavior and a pair of lopsided losses to ECU overshadowed the Gators’ turnaround and left them out of the Super Regional for the third time in five seasons.
Florida opened SEC play 1-11 but responded with 14 wins during its final 18 conference games — and 15 wins in 20 games overall entering the NCAAs.
The Gators salvaged their season despite four season-ending injuries, culminating with catcher Luke Heyman’s broken forearm during the regular-season finale against Alabama. Injuries also ended the seasons of outfielder Kyle Jones (shoulder), pitcher Frank Menendez (elbow) and second baseman Cade Kurland (shoulder). Shortstop Colby Shelton (wrist) missed significant stretches.
“It was just one thing after another,” O’Sullivan said.
Entering a new season, he’ll look to emphasize the 2025 squad’s response.
“It didn’t end the way we wanted it to,” he said. “But in the grand scheme of things … no one in the history of the SEC in baseball, since `91 since it’s been expanded, has ever started out at 1-11 and turned it around. Hopefully, that momentum we can build off.”
The 2026 Gators have talented pitchers Liam Peterson and Aidan King holding down the 1-2 spots in the rotation. O’Sullivan likes depth in the outfield, versatility in the infield and options at catcher, the position he played at the University of Virginia.
Florida is weighing options at closer a season after the Gators’ inability to find a reliable one cost them games.
“It’s demoralizing to the entire group when you fight your tail off for eight innings and it just slips away,” he said. “When it happens on a consistent basis, boy, that’s a tough, tough pill to swallow.”
Florida’s NIL resources, compared with some of the SEC’s top programs, was another stressor O’Sullivan struggled to manage.
“There’s schools in our league that you know that significantly have more advantages that way,” he said. “But just keep telling yourself, ‘We are Florida still.’ That part of it, too, for me personally was a stressful thing to adjust to.”
The day-to-day grind, the responsibility of three dozen players and a dozen staff, and all the challenges of a long season finally caught up to one of the fiercest competitors on the UF campus.
“It’s hard to turn it off. It’s just hard,” he said. “The perfectionist comes out in you,. The sense of gratitude, I think that kind of gets lost in this profession at times. Things can kind of get away from me a little bit.”
Despite his difficult offseason, O’Sullivan believes he’s regained his grasp on himself, his program and what ultimately matters.
“You don’t wake up one day and just go, ‘You know what, I have a little different perspective on things,’” he said. “You make a commitment to yourself personally: whether it be get up every morning and have my own routine and make sure I get some personal time for myself in the morning so I don’t get bogged down during the day and let one day slip away from the next.
“It’s important we all take care of ourselves first. And if we do that, then everything else will fall in place. It’s really that simple.”
Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com