It didn’t take long for new Texas Tech baseball head coach Tim
Tadlock to make his first hire, and it is a quality one in that.
J-Bob Thomas is the first new face that will join Tadlock in
this rebuilding time for the Tech Baseball coaching staff.
“I couldn’t be
more excited to join Coach Tadlock’s staff and to be a part of the Texas Tech
family,” Thomas said in a news release on Wednesday. “I’m grateful for this
opportunity and can’t wait to get started.”
Thomas, 29, comes from an extremely successful program at
Howard College, where the Hawks in 2009 were the JUCO National Champions going
an astonishing 63-1 that season.
The new assistant spent the last seven seasons in Big Spring
helping build that program to national prominence as Thomas served as the
assistant coach and recruiting coordinator.
In joining Tadlock at Tech, Thomas will be also helping in the
recruiting process and working with the catchers and hitters as well.
Helping with the hitters comes as no surprise with the
success at Howard, as the Hawks in 2008-batted .430, 2009-batted .421 and most
recently in 2011-batted .394. Those years, the team batting averages ranked as
the best in the country.
Not only did the Hawks as a team do well at the dish, but
also individual players at the same time.
In his tenure, Thomas had three sluggers lead the nation in
hitting and overall in his time at Howard had seven hitters finish in the Top
10 in the country in batting.
With these kinds of numbers it comes as no surprise that the
Hawks won four-straight conference championships and for the past two years
have made it to the Region V Baseball Championship game.
“J-Bob has worked
extremely hard to earn this opportunity,” Tadlock said in a news release on
Wednesday. “We are very excited to add him to our coaching staff.”