OKLAHOMA CITY – Coming off a year that saw the Mid-America Christian baseball team put together its winningest season in the NAIA Era and its first appearance in the NCCAA Baseball World Series, the Evangels welcome Read Brown as the program’s hitting coach for 2022-23.
A native of Charlotte, N.C., Brown comes to MACU after serving a stellar year at Eastern Oklahoma State. In his lone season as the assistant coach for the Mountaineers, Brown helped guide EOSC to a 51-5 overall record and a NJCAA Region II Championship. Brown’s primary duties with Eastern Oklahoma State was to serve the role as hitting coach and scouting director as the Mountaineers wrapped up a sensational year at the dish. With a .369 batting average, EOSC ranked fourth at the NJCAA Division I level while also boasting the nation’s sixth-highest on-base percentage (.464) and 17th-best slugging percentage (.564).
Previously, Brown served as an assistant coach for College of Saint Rose, an NCAA Division II institution in Albany, N.Y for the fall of 2021. In preparation for the 2022 season, Brown’s guidance helped the Golden Knights raise their batting average from .257 in 2021 to .283 in 2022.
Brown’s longest tenure was at NCAA Division II East Stroudsburg University from 2019-2021. As the program’s recruiting coordinator and assistant hitting coach. Brown also served as a third base coach and catching coach and as the recruiting coordinator, brought in several talented players, including one player that was named an All-PSAC East catcher as a freshman. In his three years with the Warriors, ESU amassed a 60-35-3 record while navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the summer of 2018, Brown was the head coach of the Hornell Dodgers, a summer league team out of Hornell, N.Y. that competes in the New York Collegiate Baseball League. During that summer, the Dodgers finished with a .310 batting average as a team while driving in 236 RBIs during the 42-game slate.
For the 2017 and 2018 seasons, Brown was the assistant coach and director of operations for Glenville State College, an NCAA Division II competitor out of Glenville, W. Va. As a hitting coach and a catching coach, Brown brought drastic improvement to the lineup in his second season with the program as the team’s home run production rose from 13 in 2017 to 28 in 2018 while the team’s strikeout numbers dropped from 296 to 259.
Brown’s first two years of coaching experience came as a graduate assistant for NCAA Division II Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, N.C. from 2015-16. Not only did Brown assist his alma mater’s varsity program, but also served as the program’s JV Coach during his two seasons with the Bears.
Brown also competed for three seasons as a player with Lenoir-Rhyne from 2012-14, earning his Bachelor’s of Arts in Business Administration in 2014 and his Master’s of Business Administration in 2016.
Overall, Brown has developed some top-level talent at the collegiate level with more than 15 of his past players signing professional contracts thus far during his coaching career.
