Head baseball coach Bobby Peirce won his 900th career victory over spring break by avoiding a series sweep against South Alabama.
Coach Pierce said about his win: “900 is a number that says you’ve been coaching a long time”
“It’s a number that says you’ve had a fairly success career, and for me it’s a team thing— it certainly is. None of this happens without your family’s support, university administration, assistant coaches and players.”
Pierce is a native of Marianna, Fla. and started college at Troy in the fall of 1977; he transferred to south Florida Community College the next semester. His 1979 season was spent at Wallace Community College in Dothan before signing at the University of Alabama in 1980.
While there Pierce set multiple school records, was an All-SEC outfielder and earned a spot on the school’s all-century team.
He became Chipola College’s youngest coach at 23 years old. In his first year there, he led the team to win the Florida state junior college championship.
After seven lucrative seasons, he then went back to Tuscaloosa as an assistant coach where he spent five years and coached 16 players who transitioned into professional baseball.
He was the first ever head coach at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, starting the program’s first seven years with a 276- 108 record and coaching 10 players that went on to play professional ball.
Coach Pierce then came to Troy in 2003 and has won three conference titles and been to 3 NCAA regionals.
He has coached 10 seasons in Troy and has coached 23 players that went to professional baseball.
When asked what this win means to him Pierce said, “For me any milestone win, or any big [win], its like boom, my mind just goes into a reflect stage to reflect back. It just runs through your head all the great memories, all the great times and all the rewarding times.”
“A story I like to tell is the story of the six consecutive national award winners, which to the best our sports information people can find out, we are the only team in the country that had that. Well at the end of the first season when the dust settled we thought wasn’t that unbelievable to watch a player lead the nation. We know we may never see that again so you gotta enjoy it, soak it in, and it happened again the next year, then came the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. “ Pierce recalled one of his fondest memories in Troy.
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