With the 2023 regular season completed, the coaching carousel revs up for HBCU baseball. Black College Nines will continue to keep updates on the latest coaching changes for the coming 2024 season. Get all the latest offseason moves of HBCU baseball and recent head coaching and assistant coaching changes that have taken place heading into fall ball.
Recent coaching changes…
LARGE SCHOOL
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Out – Head Coach Brian Hollamon
In – Interim Head Coach Shawn Phillips
Note: On August 21, 2017, Hollamon was named the head coach at Maryland Eastern Shore. With a 43–132 overall record in five seasons, sources have confirmed with Black College Nines that the athletic department has announced the school has released Hollamon of his head coaching duties. The Hawks entered the season with high hopes, but were scuffling the entire season. Assistant coach Shawn Phillips was promoted into the interim head coaching position.
Mississippi Valley State
Out – Head Coach Milton Barney
Note: From what sources have stated, the head coach’s salary is $50,000 with limited financial support for the baseball program. It was a tough building year for Barney who was building the program with a lot of young players. Not sure if the contract of Assistant Coach Jaylan Bledsoe will be retained. If the athletic department wants to put a winning team on the field, one candidate could be former Winston Salem State University head coach Kevin Ritsche. Ritsche was hired in 2010 to resurrect the WSSU baseball program after a 37-year hiatus. He did so quickly, recording 319 wins in nine seasons, including at least 30 wins in all nine years. Ritsche’s NCAA teams won six conference championships and made six NCAA Division II Tournament appearances. In 2017, WSSU finished runner-up in the NCAA Atlantic Regional. He was a five-time Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Coach of the Year. He won three HBCU Baseball National Titles. After WSSU shut down the baseball program in 2018, Ritsche became the head coach at the College of St. Scholastica in 2019, his alumni where he led the Saints to a 20-9 overall record in 2021 and to a runner-up finish in the UMAC regular season, and in the conference tournament as well.
Mississippi Valley State could turn to Patrick Barbour former head coach of Lane College who was hired after the 2018 season. Barbour led Lane to a HBCU Baseball national title in the shortened 2020 pandemic season. Barbour took a year off from coaching because of the birth of his child. He has drawn coaching interest. Sources have also stated the athletic department is searching nationally for a new head coach.