NEWARK, NJ–NJIT baseball assistant coach Robbie McClellan has been named Interim Head Coach of the Highlanders for the 2018-19 season.
McClellan joined the NJIT coaching staff as an assistant coach in 2011-12, filling that roll for seven seasons until being named to interim head coach to succeed Brian Guiliana as head coach in August 2018.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to lead the 2018-19 Highlanders,” McClellan commented. With an exciting incoming freshmen class and experienced returners, the goal is to continue to build on the success from the last season in the ASUN.”
McClellan demonstrated success in his time on staff as recently as 2018, when the Highlanders posted 22 wins, defeated two top-25 teams, program’s first appearance in the ASUN Conference Tournament and program-best nine ASUN Conference victories.
He helped develop ASUN All-Conference selections, including 2018 honorees: Jesse Uttendorfer, Julio Marcano, Justin Etts, David Marcano and Paul Franzoni. Rising sophomore Julio Marcano, became the first NJIT athlete to earn Freshman All-American recognition since competing at the Division I level.
During his time as assistant coach, McClellan helped the Highlanders reach 20+wins in five-out-of-seven seasons’, including 24 wins in 2015.
In his first season with the Highlanders, McClellan helped guide the final seasons of two pitchers, Mark Leiter, Jr, and Tripp Davis, who would make the transition from college to professional baseball in the summer of 2013. Leiter, who made national news with 20 strikeouts against Chicago State, the most in any Division I game nationally in 2013, would be picked by the Philadelphia Phillies in that June’s first-year player draft. And Davis signed as an undrafted free agent with the organization of the 2014 American League champion Kansas City Royals.
McClellan, who pitched in the minor leagues for three seasons after being drafted in the 12th round of the 2003 Major League Baseball June Amateur Draft by the Kansas City Royals, made a quick transition into college coaching when his playing career ended prematurely due to injury.
After retiring from playing in the summer of 2007, he joined the coaching staff at Chandler Gilbert Community College in Arizona that September and was the program’s pitching coach until signing on for the staff at NJIT. At Chandler Gilbert, a national-level two-year program, 27 of his pitching pupils have either moved on to NCAA Division I programs or to sign professional contracts.
In addition to his coaching at Chandler Gilbert Community College, McClellan served as pitching coach for teams in the famed Cape Cod Baseball League and in the Texas Collegiate League, two of the top summer circuits for college players. In three years on the summer scene, he coached 35 players who were drafted by major league baseball.
