Eric Bakich announced today that he hired former Pepperdine pitching coach Sean Kenny. This is an interesting move as Kenny has been on the west coast as members of coaching staffs since the 1997 season with stints at Saint Mary’s, San Diego, and most recently at Pepperdine for the past eleven seasons. He played college ball at Eastern Michigan but a move to the highly competitive ACC and across the country is interesting as he has to continue to have his connections on the East Coast for recruiting. You can check out the full press release from Maryland below.
FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – New Maryland baseball coach Erik Bakich announced the hiring of Pepperdine pitching coach Sean Kenny to fill the same role for the Terrapins Friday, officially filling the first of two vacant coaching jobs on the staff.
A native of Ann Arbor, Mich., Kenny spent the last 11 seasons on the West Coast, establishing himself as one of the best assistant coaches in all of college baseball. Kenny spent the last six seasons with the Waves, where he produced 13 Major League Baseball draft picks in that time. Before that, Kenny was an assistant at San Diego for five years, helping lead the Toreros to NCAA Tournament berths his final two seasons.
“I could not be more excited about the addition of Sean Kenny to our coaching staff,” Bakich said. “His reputation as one of the elite pitching coaches in the country speaks for itself and his recruiting abilities are outstanding. Sean is one of the nation’s top assistant coaches and he shares the same vision of catapulting Maryland baseball into a perennial ACC and College World Series contender. He played a major role in building and solidifying San Diego and Pepperdine into two of the top programs on the West Coast and I appreciate he and his wife, Jesse, moving across the country to do the same thing at Maryland. This is a tremendous boost for our team and program.”
At Pepperdine, Kenny coached two West Coast Conference pitchers of the year and two freshmen of the year while regularly guiding his staff to a team ERA below 4.0. Last season, Pepperdine’s pitching staff compiled 477 strikeouts, breaking the program record set by the 1992 national championship team. Kenny’s pitchers also averaged 9.1 strikeouts per nine innings last season.
“I could not be more excited to have the opportunity to be associated with the University of Maryland baseball program,” Kenny said. “I am honored that coach Bakich asked me to be a part of his staff and I am ready to get to work and bring Maryland to the top of the ACC.”
In 2002, Kenny’s staff at San Diego posted the best ERA in the WCC, led by WCC Pitcher of the Year Ricky Barrett.
Kenny began his Division I coaching career in 1997 as the volunteer assistant at Saint Mary’s of California, where he worked with the team’s outfielders.
Kenny played college baseball at Eastern Michigan, where he was a two-time all-Mid-American Conference selection. The New York Mets selected Kenny in the 17th round of the 1993 draft and he played three years in the Mets’ organization.
Kenny graduated from Eastern Michigan in 1997 with a degree in English literature and earned a master’s degree in physical education from Saint Mary’s in 2000.
