Head Coach Stanley Stubbs is Changing Baseball at Rust College

An HBCU baseball alumnus is making waves in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Rust College head coach Stanley Stubbs was born in Booneville, MS. Stubbs played JUCO college baseball at Northeast Community College in Booneville and finished his four-year baseball career at Lane College in Jackson, TN. 

Stubbs is a well known name in HBCU coaching ranks. Well respected with baseball fans and former players, Coach Stanley Stubbs’ resume includes 21 years as both a head and assistant coach. His tenure as head coach is an inspiring success by any measure. 

Stubbs started his coaching career at Jackson State from 1994-1998 and won the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) championship in 1995.

Hired as the head coach at Paine College in Augusta, GA in 1998, Stubbs won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) and honored as SIAC Coach of the Year in 2000.

In 2001, Stanley Stubbs was chosen to lead the Albany State baseball program as head coach and won SIAC conference championships and Coach of the Year honors twice in his two seasons as its skipper. 

Coach Stubbs then spent one season as Benedict College as head coach in 2003 and then departed the coaching ranks to become a Florida Marlins associate scout from 2004-2006. 

After a brief hiatus from coaching, Stubbs resumed his coaching career at Lemoyne Owens College from 2011-2013. He was then hired by Savannah State as an assistant in 2013-2015 under head coach Carlton Hardy, before accepting the Texas College coaching job. 

When the Texas College baseball program needed a jolt, they turned to Stubbs, an experienced NCAA Division I and Division II coach who was hired to rebuild the program. Stubbs brought in as his assistant from Savannah State and current Texas College coach Anthony “Happy” Macon. 

With his hiring to lead the Rust Bearcat baseball in 2017, Stanley Stubbs was brought on to rebuild the program. 

Rust was in a decline. The athletic department was an NCAA DIII school. Because of the financial strain at the NCAA level for a small college, the Bearcats began a transition to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), an association geared towards small colleges and universities. 

After the hiring of the former Division I coach and the initial hiring of former Lane College head coach John Bates as his assistant (Bates coached Lane from 2018-2018), both started to renovate the Bearcats’ baseball field. 

Before Stubbs, Rust College was a losing baseball program. Both Stubbs and Bates started to rebuild the program through recruiting, bringing in better baseball players. The change was noticeable. Former Rust coach Aubry Burdine had little administration support. Once Stubbs started the field restoration, the change was noticeable. 

The new administration saw the modification to the field as well as new recruits. 

Stubbs started heavily recruiting in the region and across the nation. Hitting the road, Stubbs was landing student-athletes from the Chicago and Atlanta area. The recruiting did not include any Junior College (JUCO) players but a few transfers to help build the program. 

This year the coaching staff noticed a huge change. A class that brought in 17 new freshmen with five as starters on the current roster. 

The top two are pitching as starters, Cullen Odom and Parish Green and also includes freshman closer Brytan Sampson along with Andrian Mendoza and Dreylin Holmes. 

Stubbs added amenities to the renovation project to help recruiting. Bullpens and dugouts were added, something the old park did not have.  

Outfielder, Draylen Holmes is the team’s leading hitter along with second basemen Darrien Chapman. Holmes is ranked 13th in the nation in the NAIA batting .449 and a team leading three home runs and 28 runs batted in. 

Jerome Williams who played professional baseball in the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs organization and played at Rust College in the 1980s, is the hitting coach. 

With Stubbs’ recruitment of the new players and those returning from last season, the team has chemistry and a winning attitude. 

Stubbs is building a winning program. 

The Bearcats are the 10th ranked team in Black College Nines HBCU Baseball Small School Top 10 national poll. Rust was ranked as high as 5th in the March 25th poll and entered in at No. 6 in the week one poll of March 11th. 

Rust College, which is 13-16 overall and 4-4 in the Gulf Coast Atlantic Conference (GCAC) and the Association of Independent Institutions (A.I.I.), is fighting for the last seed in the GCAC/A.I.I. post season conference tournament and an invitation to the inaugural Black College World Series to be held April 28 – May 1st, 2021 in Montgomery, AL.

Stubbs’ value to Rust College doesn’t come from winning alone. His experience in handling all of the tough duties that come with being a baseball head coach plays an important part of his success.

Stanley Stubbs is also the Associate Athletic Director at Rust College and is an Associate Major League Baseball (MLB) scout for the Washington Nationals. 

Stubbs was instrumental in recruiting most of the Rust players. He had a huge hand in getting the Jackson State program where it is now, which is among the most consistent programs in the SWAC.

With new freshmen for the 2021 season, coach Stubbs stated “we are young with growing pains but we want to build the program into a title contender.” His ultimate goal; a conference and a national championship.

In rebuilding Rust College baseball, the thought process was “It’s going to take some time.” With Stubbs leading, big things get turned around for good. That will make people immediately take notice. The administration has really been helping the program with support from the new president, Dr. Ivey Taylor. According to Coach Bates, “she has been very supportive and is a wonderful person.”