Gus Hernandez thinks his whole life has been leading him to this.

Ron Bishop sees it as the ideal resume.

Hernandez, 49, is leaving Tennessee Temple University after three seasons as baseball coach. He will be joining the SCORE International ministry headed by Bishop, former Temple coach and athletic director.

Hernandez will be the camp director at the brand-new Rawlings Foundation facility SCORE uses in the Dominican Republic, and he and his wife, Ileana, will handle the many SCORE groups coming every year from the United States. He also will oversee the organization's year-round baseball operation in the Dominican.

"I've been going there with SCORE the last four years. I've been five times," Hernandez said Saturday. "Ron befriended me and got me to the Dominican for the November coaches' clinic the fall before my first season at Temple, and it really opened my eyes to see that type of work."

The camps will bring in as many as 1,000 children, and feeding them is part of the mission. Hernandez, who was born in Cuba, headed food-service operations for resort hotels in his years as a businessman in the Miami area. He coached baseball on the side and wound up as an assistant coach for four years at Westwood Christian School and then the head coach and athletic director for another four.

"I helped with the food service there, too. It was a big school, over a thousand kids," he said.

He had left a job paying a six-figure annual salary after becoming a Christian, he said, because of the lifestyle his position promoted.

"When we looked at Gus's resume," Bishop said, "Mr. (Herb) Rawlings and I both said, 'This is unbelievable. He is a perfect fit.' He's a baseball man who has been director of a camp with over 500 kids in Miami, and he headed food service for four- and five-star hotels. Plus he's bilingual and has been to the Dominican so many times with SCORE, he knows our operation and people there know him."

Hernandez and his wife relocated to Chattanooga when their daughter came as a freshman to Temple, where Gus Jr. already was a student and baseball player. Gus Sr. helped coach Bob Hall as a volunteer and then took over when Hall took a bigger role in Temple's academy administration.

Hernandez quickly developed a reputation in the Chattanooga area as a knowledgeable coach and enthusiastic recruiter. The Crusaders went 20-26 this year with limited pitching, and they defeated or played into extra innings or within a run of four teams that were in the top 10 in the NAIA rankings going into the postseason.

Besides leaving his children in Chattanooga, Hernandez said leaving his Temple players is his biggest regret about the new job.

"Temple is a very special place to me, but my wife and I believe this is what God wants us to do," he said. "We also will miss our church family at Silverdale Baptist, and we've got great neighbors in Ringgold."

He particularly praised the mentoring he has received from Glenn Copeland and thanked former TTU athletic director Kevin Templeton and school president Danny Lovett for the opportunity that gave him.

Athletic director John Secord just named a soccer coach and is in the process of hiring a women's basketball coach, but he wished Hernandez well in his new endeavor.

"We're excited for Gus and this new ministry opportunty, and we will do everything we can to help in the transition," Secord said.

Secord noted that assistant coach Drew Whitley would be a candidate as the search begins for a successor to Hernandez.