DETERMINED GARRIDO AIMING TO UPHOLD TEXAS' TALL TRADITION : LONGHORNS MUST EARN THEIR `T'.

Byline: Suzanne Halliburton Cox News Services

It was photo day for the University of Texas baseball team earlier this month. And new coach Augie Garrido allowed his Longhorns to wear their game-day burnt orange and white caps, the ones decorated with the big orange T, for the first time during fall drills.

Garrido made an exception for the camera, but he quickly made the players return to his new rule as soon as the photos were snapped. He will not allow any Longhorn to wear the block T until he is satisfied that the team, collectively, has earned it. The team's practice uniform, which the Longhorns have used through fall drills, also lacks the script ``Texas'' printed across the chest.

``I did that out of respect of the three coaches before me and all the T men who have been here,'' said Garrido, whose team begins its three-day fall world series today at Disch-Falk Field. ``Before I allow the players to wear it, I want to know that they are responsible enough to honor that T. It's a team deal. I don't have any specific timetable for allowing them to wear it again. I'll have to see if they have the right attitude and work ethic.''

Outfielder Clint Kiemsteadt, a senior and part-time starter last year, initially was taken aback by Garrido's ambitious take on the team uniform.

``I remember he said we'd have to earn the T, and at first I didn't know what he meant,'' Kiemsteadt said. ``But when you think about it, it's true. Instead of us coming out and having it handed to us, everybody's going to have to be pushing to wear it. Now it's going to be an honor.''

The change in attire was Garrido's unique way of motivating his team as well as getting its attention, as if his arrival in Austin on July 31 had gone unnoticed.

Garrido, after all, was hired two weeks after Coach Cliff Gustafson, the winningest coach in major college baseball history, abruptly retired after a UT internal audit discovered an unauthorized bank account, which circumvented school rules, with nearly $285,000 in summer camp revenues. Records show that Gustafson's son Deron, who was an unpaid volunteer assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for his father, was the chief custodian of the account who made most of the deposits and wrote all the checks.

It took a fortnight for the selection committee to come up with only the fourth baseball coach at UT in 85 years.

The hiring of Garrido stunned many UT fans, but not because the former Cal State-Fullerton coach lacked the proper credentials. Rather, most believed that Garrido, at 57, was nearing retirement and that someone his age, and a native Californian to boot, would not want to pull up stakes and move to the capital of Texas.

``I feel very fortunate to be in Austin,'' said Garrido, who has won three College World Series titles in three different decades and has been selected national coach of the year four times. ``It's a fabulous place. And it's an energizing place.''

Garrido, who has the vitality of someone two decades younger, has made a smooth transition to Texas. He is a dapper Californian who counts movie star Kevin Costner among his tight circle of friends. Yet he also is Texan on his mother's side, and he doesn't mind telling you how his maternal grandparents left their home in the tiny Panhandle town of Quanah during the Depression to find work in the fruit fields of Northern California. Plus, he had spent many weekends in Austin visiting Gustafson, whom he considers a close friend.

Gustafson is often spotted at practice, sitting in his old seat near the home dugout. He has told Garrido he wants to make as many baseball games as he can. Even Deron Gustafson has come by to watch Garrido work.

``I called Cliff this summer to let him know (UT) was looking at me for the job,'' Garrido said. ``And I asked him how he'd feel about that. He told me `Great, because now I'll always know that I'm welcome at the ballpark.'

``That's good, because he should be here,'' Garrido said. ``I'm just a shepherd of this place. This place (Disch-Falk Field) was built by three people. I think Cliff represented the two coaches (Billy Disch and Bibb Falk) very well. He was a combination of both of them.''

Garrido pleased alums when he hired two former Longhorns All-Americans as assistants - Tommy Harmon, Gustafson's chief assistant, and Burt Hooton.

But he has made changes. He shored up the Longhorns schedule, which under Gustafson had too many home dates for NCAA tastes, by adding home and home series with Louisiana State, Miami and Southern California for the 1998 and 1999 seasons. He also replaced a 1997 home series with Fullerton, his old school, with a three-game set against the Hurricanes.

It's probably no coincidence that UT officials started looking into renovating Disch-Falk a month after Garrido took the job. Grass is a possibility to replace the artificial surface. Other renovation and expansion projects will be decided by Feb. 1.

Garrido barely knew the names of the UT players who are back from a disappointing 44-19 season, which ended when the Longhorns lost in the NCAA regional semifinals. There are not many returnees. Olympic shortstop Kip Harkrider is the only full-time starter back. Donny Barker, who had a .500 record last year as a starter, and chief reliever Eric French are the two returning pitchers.