Coaching Baseball Successfully

In Coaching Baseball Successfully, Coach Andy Lopez shows you how to build your own championship baseball team. He includes nuts-and-bolts information about how to

• plan for the season and prepare for practices,
• teach both offensive and defensive techniques and tactics to players,
• prepare for games and handle various game situations,
• evaluate your players and your program, and
• use 36 drills to develop players’ bunting, baserunning, hitting, and defensive skills.

Lopez also explains how to develop a baseball coaching philosophy, communicate on and off the field, and motivate players to be their best.

Andy Lopez has been a head baseball coach since 1978, putting together an impressive string of winning ball clubs at three different levels. He began his career at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, California, where his team was a frequent participant in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) playoffs. In 1982 his squad was runner up in the CIF finals played at Dodger Stadium.

Andy moved up to the NCAA Division II level the following year, becoming head coach at California State University at Dominguez Hills, in Carson. His teams clinched three conference championships and finished third place in the 1987 College World Series. In 1988 Andy stepped up to the NCAA Division I level when he was named head baseball coach at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. Under his leadership, Pepperdine teams won four conference championships and captured the 1992 NCAA National Championship. Today, he is head baseball coach at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he’s built a powerhouse and taken them all the way to the College World Series.

Andy has received numerous honors as coach of the year, including the 1992 NCAA Division I National Coach of the Year Award. He was inducted into the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. A graduate of UCLA, Andy is a member of the American Baseball Coaches Association and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In his leisure time, he enjoys spending time with his family, reading, and jogging.

John Kirkgard’s unique perspective as both a longtime friend of Andy Lopez and a colleague in the coaching ranks brought special insights to this book. He helped Andy put his thoughts on paper and added his own expertise. A successful coach in his own right, John is an assistant baseball coach at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Previously, he managed the baseball team at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, where his teams won three Golden State Athletic Conference championships and one NAIA District 3 championship.

John is baseball chairman of the NAIA’s Far West Region. He was named NAIA Far West Region Coach of the Year in 1994 and NAIA District 3 Coach of the Year in 1988, 1989, and 1994. In 1986 he received an MBA from California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California. A member of the American Baseball Coaches Association and Fellowship of Christian Athletes, John resides in Santa Barbara, California.