{"id":147099,"date":"2026-02-07T10:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T10:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/147099\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T10:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T10:44:15","slug":"rested-and-renewed-osullivan-returns-ready-to-lead-gators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/147099\/","title":{"rendered":"Rested and renewed, O\u2019Sullivan returns ready to lead Gators"},"content":{"rendered":"

GAINESVILLE \u2014\u00a0Gators baseball coach Kevin O\u2019Sullivan enters his 19th year at Florida rested, ready and renewed after a season-ending tirade<\/a> led to a three-game suspension<\/a>, and a personal leave of absence provided a fresh perspective.<\/p>\n

A College World Series winner and NCAA Tournament regular, O\u2019Sullivan is one of his sport\u2019s top coaches.<\/p>\n

The 57-year-old now strives for something even more elusive and meaningful than success in the nation\u2019s top baseball conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve 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,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan said Friday, a week before the No. 22 Gators open the 2026 season. \u201cIt\u2019s really that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan spoke for the first time since he experienced the lowest point \u2014 save for the deaths of his mother and his father \u2014 of a Hall of Fame career.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast fall at the end was probably one of the hardest things I\u2019ve had to do,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it ended up being the best thing that could have happened. I feel rejuvenated. I feel great. I feel much, much more at peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan is eager to make up for lost time, though he\u2019ll have to miss his team\u2019s season-opening series Feb. 13-15 against UAB at Condron Family Ballpark in Gainesville.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will probably be \u2014 well, not probably \u2014 I will be at home,\u201d he said with a dose of contrition.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan has accepted the consequences of actions he deems regrettable during the NCAA Tournament\u2019s Conway Regional at Coastal Carolina.<\/p>\n

Known for his fiery temperament, O\u2019Sullivan unleashed a profanity-laced tirade on June 1 prior to the Gators\u2019 season-ending 11-4 loss<\/a> to East Carolina University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan berated an on-site staff member while using more than a dozen expletives during a 47-second video of the incident. Florida\u2019s coach was upset that officials moved his team\u2019s elimination game with ECU from noon to 1 p.m. because the Pirates\u2019 loss to host Coastal Carolina did not end until close to midnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly wish I didn\u2019t do it. No one feels more regretful than I do,\u201d he said. \u201cThe 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, I\u2019ve moved forward on that. That\u2019s in the past for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s behavior and a pair of lopsided losses to ECU overshadowed the Gators\u2019 turnaround and left them out of the Super Regional for the third time in five seasons.<\/p>\n

Florida opened SEC play 1-11 but responded with 14 wins during its final 18 conference games \u2014 and 15 wins in 20 games\u00a0 overall entering the NCAAs.<\/p>\n

The Gators salvaged their season despite four season-ending injuries, culminating with catcher Luke Heyman\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just one thing after another,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan said.<\/p>\n

Entering a new season, he\u2019ll look to emphasize the 2025 squad\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t end the way we wanted it to,\u201d he said. \u201cBut in the grand scheme of things \u2026 no one in the history of the SEC in baseball, since `91 since it\u2019s been expanded, has ever started out at 1-11 and turned it around. Hopefully, that momentum we can build off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2026 Gators have talented pitchers Liam Peterson and Aidan King holding down the 1-2 spots in the rotation. O\u2019Sullivan likes depth in the outfield, versatility in the infield and options at catcher, the position he played at the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n

Florida is weighing options at closer a season after the Gators\u2019 inability to find a reliable one cost them games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s demoralizing to the entire group when you fight your tail off for eight innings and it just slips away,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen it happens on a consistent basis, boy, that\u2019s a tough, tough pill to swallow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s NIL resources, compared with some of the SEC\u2019s top programs, was another stressor O\u2019Sullivan struggled to manage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s schools in our league that you know that significantly have more advantages that way,\u201d he said. \u201cBut just keep telling yourself, \u2018We are Florida still.\u2019 That part of it, too, for me personally was a stressful thing to adjust to.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to turn it off. It\u2019s just hard,\u201d he said. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his difficult offseason, O\u2019Sullivan believes he\u2019s regained his grasp on himself, his program and what ultimately matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t wake up one day and just go, \u2018You know what, I have a little different perspective on things,’\u201d he said. \u201cYou 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\u2019t get bogged down during the day and let one day slip away from the next. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important we all take care of ourselves first. And if we do that, then everything else will fall in place. It\u2019s really that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GAINESVILLE \u2014\u00a0Gators baseball coach Kevin O\u2019Sullivan enters his 19th year at Florida rested, ready and renewed after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111,28,2530,2496,114,139,141,140,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-147099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-gators","11":"tag-gainesville","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-headlines","15":"tag-orlando-news","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}