SAN ANTONIO – Chants of UT-SA engulfed Austin’s UFCU Disch-Falk Field as orange and blue clad fans clamored for an opportunity to high five the victorious players and cameras clicked away capturing moments that will never be forgotten.
Pat Hallmark’s UTSA Baseball team had just defeated No. 2 national seed Texas for the second night in a row, advancing to the first NCAA Super Regional in program history.
As he took in the celebration Sunday night in front of a crowd of more than 7,000, the Roadrunners’ sixth-year head coach was filled with pride as he reflected on just how far his players have come since they started practice last fall.
Gunnar Brown, the right-handed pitcher who transferred to UTSA from Sam Houston – where he made only two appearances - after the 2024 campaign, had stepped into one of the most high-pressure situations imaginable, starting the NCAA Regional Final game.
Brown emerged as the winning pitcher, throwing 5.0 innings, striking out four and allowing just one earned run as the Roadrunners staked themselves to a 7-1 advantage that Texas never overcame. He had progressed a long way from where he started when he first arrived at UTSA.
“He just beat Texas in a Regional Final game to send us to the Super Regional and I’ve been hard on him,” Hallmark said. “During the early part of the season, Coach [Zach] Butler and I thought he should have made a play and he made a couple excuses. When the excuses come, it becomes about lacking accountability. I want growth from everyone. Gunnar just kept showing up.”
Anyone who knows Hallmark or has watched him coach knows the passion that he brings to the job. He brings that same enthusiasm for the young men he coaches and isn’t afraid to be vulnerable when expressing how much he cares about them.
“The players have seen me tear up,” Hallmark said. “Once the players see that side of you, they totally, totally buy in because they know you care. You can break down in front of them and tell them how proud you are of them. They just beat Texas. I was talking to Gunnar but it was in front of the whole team. I wish more people would do it because they have it in them, but they’re just scared to be vulnerable.”
* * * * *
Hallmark absolutely loved playing baseball.
After two seasons playing at Alvin Community College south of Houston, he was a First-Team All-Southwest Conference player at Rice for the Hall of Fame Coach Wayne Graham.
The 498th pick of the 1995 Major League Baseball draft, Hallmark, who calls himself a “marginal minor league player,” played professionally until the age of 30, advancing as high as the Triple A level. After the 2003 season, he found he no longer had the same motivation to play.
“I still had a contract to play minor league baseball another year,” Hallmark said. “I was married at that point. The offseason wasn’t the same. The same will and desire to train wasn’t there. I thought that this wasn’t going to work if the will to prepare isn’t there.”
Hallmark had never intended to coach baseball, but he quickly realized that being close to the game is what brought him contentment.
“I actually did not decide I wanted to coach until I decided I was going to retire from playing,” Hallmark said. “I never, ever wanted to coach. I wanted to get into the medical field, pharmaceutical sales or something like that. Literally when my playing days ended, it was almost overnight. I couldn’t see myself not involved with baseball. The coaching bug hit me pretty quick at that point.”
Encouraged to become a baseball coach by his youth coaches and other mentors in his life, Hallmark sought out his first opportunity. He was named the head coach at St. Thomas High School, a Catholic college preparatory school in Houston, for the 2005 season.
“I was 100 percent prepared to be a high school coach the rest of my life,” Hallmark said. “I did it for a year and I loved it.”
* * * * *
“Pat, do you want my job?”
It was an unexpected question that Hallmark received when he was working a summer camp at his alma mater.
Zane Curry, Rice’s volunteer coach and the starting catcher on the Owls’ 1999 College World Series team, was making a career change into the business world and thought Hallmark would make a good replacement.
“I thought he was kidding,” Hallmark said. “Coach Graham was my coach at Rice. They had just been to the College World Series and were No. 1 in the nation. It was super high profile. Zane told me to go talk to Coach. I left my station and the group of kids I was working with; he took over my station. And I went in to talk to Coach.”
Graham, who had led Rice to the 2003 NCAA Championship, surprised Hallmark with the question he asked in the moment.
“Do you really want to coach or are you trying this out and you’re going to be selling insurance in 10 years?” Graham asked.
Hallmark was all in.
He spent 11 seasons at Rice, becoming the Owls’ pitching coach in 2012. During that time, he was part of a staff that advanced to three College World Series and claimed nine Conference USA regular-season titles.
It was under Graham’s guidance that Hallmark developed much of the coaching philosophy he uses today.
“It was all about making the current player and/or the current team better,” Hallmark said. “That’s what Graham was all about: What does this player need? What does this team need? It was always a combination of the two because they work so in sync with each other. Every day was a chore – a chore in the positive, loving, organic way – to improve the personnel. Graham was the leader and he would sometimes give me specific areas. Mike Taylor, David Pierce and I were there, all directed by Coach Graham. In hindsight as I look back, there’s so many things that we still do. We live in the moment. It’s never a long-term thing, it’s always about the current player and the current moment.”
* * * * *
How well the Roadrunners have responded to pressure-packed moments might surprise those spectators who are new to UTSA Baseball.
But preparing his team for the biggest moments has always been at the core of Hallmark’s approach. It’s about making practice so challenging that the games seem straightforward in comparison.
“The fall was very pressure-filled,” Hallmark said. “Intentionally there are moments in the fall, whether it was when I was at Rice or now, where we put pressure on people and try to make them uncomfortable. October is probably my favorite time of the year. It’s just pure coaching – player development and pure baseball. That’s when you really try to ramp up the pressure on people.”
As he celebrated with his team Sunday evening, Hallmark knew that the Roadrunners met the moment because they had been well prepared for it.
“Who really wants to play against Texas on June 1 and who just says that?” Hallmark posited. “If you’re going to pout in October, what are you going to do at Disch-Falk Field on June 1? Creating uncomfortable moments can be very telling.”
Those moments are ones Hallmark has always embraced, dating back to his playing days. He knew he wasn’t the most talented player on the field, but his commitment to every aspect of his game allowed him to defeat opponents who, on paper, were better. Because the game isn’t played on paper.
“I always felt like I had to do more with less,” Hallmark said of his time as a player. “That tells you what I thought of my own personal ability. It’s a little bit of healthy fear and a little bit of a chip on the shoulder. I wasn’t as good as the next guy. At UTSA, we don’t have as much as some of the people we’re trying to beat. As a player, I was 100 percent that way and that’s how I coach.”
* * * * *
Hallmark left Rice in 2016 to become the pitching coach at Missouri. A year later, he earned his first head coaching opportunity at UIW. In two years leading the Cardinals, his teams totaled 66 wins and Hallmark was named Southland Conference Coach of the Year in 2019. His UIW squad notched signature wins against Notre Dame, Texas and Texas A&M that season.
On June 16, 2019, Hallmark was named the head coach at UTSA, where he has quickly developed the Roadrunners into a national contender. He’s led them to four consecutive 30-plus-win seasons and UTSA has been in the mix for a conference title each of those years.
Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle, a coach for whom Hallmark has repeatedly expressed his high regard, spoke to the program that has been built at UTSA.
“They’re not a fly-by-night team,” Schlossnagle said. “That is a real team – an Omaha-caliber club in every way. They can play a lot of different brands of baseball. They definitely have a persona about them and it’s a winning persona.”
The Roadrunners have long termed themselves the Junkyard Dogs, alluding to a grittiness that allows them to shake off any adversity and find a way to get the job done. That moniker has now become well-known nationally, but it’s a mindset that Hallmark has instilled since arriving at UTSA.
“If you love playing baseball, you will love playing for UTSA,” Hallmark said. “If you’re coming here for any other reason, it isn’t going to work.”
Hallmark has been able to attract talent to his roster – talent that has largely chosen to stay committed to the Roadrunners, even in the modern era of Name, Image and Likeness and the transfer portal. What that has ensured is that the players on his roster are the ones who are in it for the right reasons.
“It’s not lost on me, some of the entitlement that you see, it’s the opposite of JYD,” Hallmark said. “Coach [Ryan] Aguayo, Coach Butler and I have talked about this. There are programs with higher NIL budgets than us that have problems we don’t have. They have the kid who is just there for the NIL money. If they’re coming to UTSA, they’re coming to play ball.”
UTSA has won 47 games [and counting] this season and is in the midst of the most successful season in school history. The Roadrunners claimed the 2025 American Athletic Conference regular-season championship and have set countless records this year. While UTSA knows that it has more to accomplish, it has embraced the winning culture that has gotten the Roadrunners to this point.
“The winning’s like a big measuring stick,” Hallmark said. “Some coaches at mid-majors brush the winning under the rug like it’s too hard. It’s still the measuring stick.”
Still, despite all the milestones and accolades, winning isn’t the only thing for Hallmark and his staff. Far from it, in fact. They’re developing leaders who will be successful in all avenues of life.
“The winning is not ultimately why we do it,” Hallmark said. “You do it for the people, the relationships, the memories and the experiences. You have to win too. They go hand in hand. We place a supreme priority on relationships and winning. You can impact more people when you win.”
When he thinks about the most rewarding aspects of his job, Hallmark points to the hard-working players on his roster who don’t get all the accolades or attention that others do. They’re still growing as players and as people, fulfilling his primary objective.
“There are so many people in the locker room on this ride who aren’t getting base hits or throwing pitches, but the quality of them as people is so genuine and real,” Hallmark said. “These kids are pretty good at baseball and here they are sitting on the bench for us and so supportive of everything we’re doing. When they’re 40 years old, I’ll think of them as much as the guys doing the actual game-playing. That’s why I coach.”