NAIA/SC/Baseball
Florida Memorial Sports Information
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Florida Memorial Men’s Baseball Head Coach Luis Zarzabal has been chosen as The Sun Conference nominee for the 2014-15 NAIA Coach of Character Award.
Zarzabal has spent 8 years at Florida Memorial and 5 as the head of the men’s baseball program.When he’s not coaching at Florida Memorial, he’s engaging in community service work or coaching youth baseball in Homestead, Florida. He is highly respected among his peers, in the community and most importantly, by his student-athletes.
“Coach Luis Zarzabal has demonstrated a strong desire to work with, teach and mold young athletes to become productive citizens of our community,” Florida Memorial Athletic Director, Robert Smith said. “There have been hundreds of graduates from Coach Zarzabal’ s teams that have either gone on to graduate school to obtain advanced degrees or have started their professional careers in fields such as medicine, law enforcement and education.”
Mike Bramblett, an assistant coach on Zarzabal’s staff, echoed his athletic director’s sentiments, “Coach Zarzabal is unquestionably a coach of integrity and character with his players and in life. Clearly embracing the five core values of the NAIA Champions of Character initiative, his methods of teaching character through the game of baseball shows his players what it means to have integrity.”
“Coach Zarzabal has been a coach, mentor, confidant and truly my farther figure over the past four years,” Gary Frady, former player and now assistant coach on Zarzabal’s staff said. “He is definitely a coach of integrity and character on and off the court. His structure of drills and life lessons all come together like puzzle pieces that make up a beautiful picture of life. His coaching techniques teach you to understand the game and also to prepare you for life as a young adult outside of college.”
The criteria for the NAIA Coach of Character Award is stated as follows: the nominee must be a head coach at the NAIA institution; the nominee must have been employed by the institution a minimum of five years; the nominee must be clearly outstanding in embracing the five core values of the NAIA Champions of Character initiative (respect, integrity, responsibility, sportsmanship and servant leadership), outstanding in methods of teaching character through sport, and outstanding in community leadership through volunteering, service or other means.