If Rich Pasquale ever starts to question his decision to resign as head baseball coach at La Roche College and sign on as an assistant at Slippery Rock University, all he has to do is walk down the hall.

"The [baseball] offices are at the ballpark and you can go down the hall and into the locker room and then walk out to the dugout," he said.

The Rock plays at Critchfield Park, an on-campus field that is as attractive as any in NCAA Division II and most minor-league facilities. Of course, the field isn't the only reason Pasquale decided to leave La Roche after four seasons.

Passing on the opportunity would have been like not swinging at a fastball over the heart of the plate.

It was a chance to work for an old friend, Slippery Rock coach Jeff Messer, at a Division II school where he will have an opportunity to spend more time coaching the game he loves. He also will be making more money.

"Jeff is a good friend. I played for him in the Keystone Games when he was first starting at Slippery Rock," said Pasquale, who grew up in Beaver Falls and played high school baseball and basketball at Quigley High School.

"When I first got into coaching I would ask Jeff for his advice on things. Our friendship just grew over the years."

Messer didn't hire Pasquale because they are friends, however. Pasquale has an impressive resume and did an outstanding job at La Roche.

In the five previous seasons before he took over the La Roche baseball program the Redhawks won just 24 of 158 games. The past four seasons, La Roche was 96-76-2 and won a school-record 28 games in the spring. That came after he guided the Redhawks to 24 victories and a pair of wins in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conferen playoffs in 2004.

Pasquale was named the AMCC coach of the year that season.

Before going to La Roche, Pasquale was an assistant at Pitt for three years and at Penn State's Beaver Campus in Monaca for three years.

"I have nothing but good feelings for La Roche. I can't tell you how good the people out there treated me," Pasquale said. "They gave me an opportunity to run my own program and I'm thankful for that. It wasn't as if I was unhappy there or anything. This was just too good of an opportunity."

That fact Slippery Rock competes in NCAA Division II had something to do with the move. Coaches at Division II schools are able to spend more time with athletes than those at Division III schools, such as La Roche.

"You can play 56 games at Division II as opposed to just 40 at Division III," Pasquale said. "You've got 16 dates in the fall when you can work with the players at Division II and in the winter you can work with a player two hours a week. You couldn't work with the players at all in the winter at Division III.

"Division III is supposed to be more academic oriented, which is fine. But you do have guys who go to schools like La Roche because they want a good education and want to play ball."

A middle infielder, Pasquale played his college ball at Penn State Beaver and then at Francis Marion University in South Carolina where he was an NAIA honorable mention All-American.

His coaching philosophy mirrors Messer's in that he tried to recruit the highest quality players to La Roche.

"I tried to get guys who probably should have played at the Division II level, just like now I'll try to get guys who could play at the Division I level," he said. "That's how you get better."

While Pasquale doesn't mind working for somebody, he still has aspirations of running his own program. He said it will probably be easier for him to step into a head coaching job from Slippery Rock.

And if Messer would ever leave the Rock for another job, Pasquale would be a prime candidate to take over the program.

"I talked to some people about going from a head coaching job to being an assistant again," he said. "They thought it was a good move because I was going to a bigger program"

He also believes Slippery Rock has had chance to reach the Division II World Series.

Living in Zelienople also made the job change a no-brainer. He didn't have to move his family, which would have been tough with 4-week old Kara. Pasquale and wife Mindy also have Dominic, 6, and Maura, 4.

"It works out great. Instead of getting on 79 and driving 30 minutes south I get on and drive 20 minutes north," he said. "I'm just going in a different direction."