Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG – Virginia Tech head baseball coach John Szefc announced today the hiring of Tyler Hanson as the Hokies' new volunteer assistant coach. Hanson comes to Blacksburg from Richmond, Kentucky, where he served as an assistant coach/recruiting coordinator for Eastern Kentucky University the past three seasons. He will work with the catchers, assist with the offense and handle the day-to-day operations of the baseball camps
"Tyler Hanson will be a really good addition for our program," Szefc said. "We were looking for a guy with a lot of experience, a lot of maturity and a guy that can work with our catchers and hitters to develop them and elevate their skills. He will work really well with Kurt (Elbin) in that respect.
"He's also got a lot of experience administering camp operations and will help improve our camps. He checked a lot of boxes for us and he's been around the game for a while and is going to be a great fit for us."
Hanson has nine seasons of professional coaching experience and includes four seasons at North Carolina Central (2012-15) and a year at Duke (2011). In his career, he's coached a handful of players selected in the MLB draft, including Eastern Kentucky catcher Alex Holderbach, a 16th-round pick by Houston this past season.
In 2018, under Hanson's tutelage, Holderbach was named one of three finalists for the Johnny Bench Award, the first baseball player from the Ohio Valley Conference to be chosen as a finalist, and was a semifinalist for the Dick Howser Trophy. Hanson coached Colonel first baseman Ben Fisher to a semifinalist honor last season as well.
"I'm honored that Coach Szefc and the Virginia Tech administration gave me the opportunity to be a part of a special University and community" Hanson said. "I'm ready to get started and help build the program that Coach Szefc and the rest of the staff envision."
In the past three years in Richmond, Hanson was in charge of the team's offense as well, seeing Colonel players earned a pair of OVC Players of the Year honors, two Dick Howser Trophy semifinalists, a Golden Spikes Award Watch List player, four All-Americans, seven All-OVC team members and three Johnny Bench Award watch list players.
This past year, Eastern Kentucky finished in the top 40 in the nation in 11 different categories, most notably seventh in hits, eighth in runs scored, 14th in stolen bases and 18th in stolen bases per game. His 2017 squad was top 50 in the country in six different categories including 23rd in home runs, 29th in slugging, and 38th in batting. Also during his time at EKU, he saw four of his players end the regular season leading the nation in several categories – home runs, twice, and hits and RBI, once.
In each of his last three positions, Hanson was the team's academic liaison and saw the each of his teams post a team GPA of 3.1 or better in each of his seasons with those teams, including a high of 3.2 with Duke in the spring of 2011.