On the Friday, the NCAA Division I Council voted against a proposal that would have allowed college baseball and softball programs to hire a third full-time assistant, a decision that’s left Georgia head coach Scott Stricklin at a loss for words.

“I think the best word to describe how I feel about it is disheartened,” Stricklin told UGASports after Friday night’s 5-2 win over Missouri. “I’m just so disappointed that decision came down, and two major conferences, two so-called Power Five conferences, made a decision to keep our sport handicapped—and that’s what it is.”

Under the proposal, the legislation, brought up by the SEC and pushed by the American Baseball Coaches Association, would have let schools pay three full-time assistant coaches instead of the two that is currently allowed.

The proposal, however, failed when administrators from the Big 12 and Big Ten Conferences refused to support the measure.

“We’ve got three assistant coaches for 35 players; we’re the worst ratio in college sports. It’s long-overdue to happen. It was ready to go, and we had two major conferences make the decision that they don’t want that,” Stricklin said. “It’s a punch in the gut to college baseball to have that happen. I’m so disappointed.”

The SEC - which proposed the legislation - voted 14-0 in favor.

A former volunteer coach himself, Stricklin knows the struggles and sacrifices young coaches often have to make in order to get a foot in the door.

“I was a volunteer 20 years ago with a host family. I worked jobs at night just because I wanted to get started. I see these young coaches do it,” Stricklin said. “Coach (Mitch) Gaspar is doing it for us now. It is such a challenge to do it. I’m disheartened by this decision.”

All 14 SEC schools were in favor of the measure.

Stricklin hopes the measure can ultimately still get off the ground.

“The hope is they can put a different language into it and make it a separate proposal, a different one, and we can do it next year,” he said. “The same proposal has to wait two years, so we may do something to try and change it, somehow, some way, so it can pass.”

Unfortunately, that doesn’t help his feelings today.

“We felt decent about it yesterday,” Stricklin said. “This time yesterday we felt pretty decent about it. I’m just disheartened, I’m just disheartened.”