Former University of Miami catcher Greg Lovelady has been named UCF baseball’s seventh baseball coach.
UCF athletics director Danny White announced the hire on facebook Monday evening, days after previous head coach Terry Rooney stepped down to accept a coaching position at the University of Alabama. Rooney served as the Knights’ head coach for eight seasons.
Lovelady, 37, won two College World Series championships as a player at Miami and two additional championships as an assistant coach for the Hurricanes before being promoted to head coach at Wright State in 2014.
UCF is the second head coaching position for Lovelady, who has compiled a 124-56 career record.
“I think when you guys all get a chance to meet him, he’s gonna make you laugh, he has a great time interacting with the players. Everything I learned about him in the research part told me that about him, but when you visit with him, you can see how talented he is at connecting with recruits and certainly with our players,” White said.
Players were introduced to Lovelady in a video teleconference to the team, White said.
Lovelady recently led Wright State to its second consecutive Horizon League Conference Tournament title and was named the league’s coach of the year during back-to-back seasons. The Raiders recorded a school record 46 wins last season and five players were selected in the MLB Draft.
“This is not a rebuilding effort, we want to compete for a championship right away,” White said. “Coach Rooney did a great job building this program and we want to build off of that and certainly not look at a rebuilding proposition. We had some injuries this past year, but we expect to compete at a really high level.”
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