A baseball vagabond has found a home on the top step of the King College dugout.
The school announced Monday that Blaine Brown, a Tornado assistant for the past two years, has been named the school’s new head baseball coach.
“It’s definitely exciting,” Brown said in a phone interview. “It’s something that I’ve been pursuing as far as a head coaching job for 10 years now.”
Over that decade, Brown, who graduated from what is now the University of Saint Mary in Kansas, has held assistant coaching positions and other baseball-related jobs at stops ranging from Drexel University in Philadelphia to the University of Maryland to Brazil, where he was a scout for Major League Baseball.
“I definitely took the hard road and had some tough goes along the way, but the journey has been worth it,” Brown said.
Brown takes over for Mac McClarrinon, who also came to King two years ago.
The school had released no word about McClarrinon’s departure and his name was absent from a King press release sent out Monday about Brown’s hiring.
New King athletic director David Hicks was not immediately available for comment Monday about Brown’s hire or McClarrinon’s departure.
In the prepared release from the school, however, Hicks expressed confidence in Brown’s ability to lead the program as it prepares to play in its first NCAA Division II league, Conference Carolinas, next spring.
“We are delighted to have someone with Blaine’s vision and experience to head up Tornado baseball,” Hicks said. “He has served the team admirably in his capacity as assistant coach, and we are confident in his ability to advance the team’s success.”
Brown said he officially accepted the job on Friday after finding out about McClarrinon’s departure the previous week. Brown said he was unaware of the circumstances that caused the school and McClarrinon to part ways, but he said McClarrinon called him with words of encouragement after he received the top job.
“He called me and congratulated me and wished me luck and told me to continue building what we started,” Brown said.
Under McClarrinon, who led King to the National Christian College Athletic Association World Series during each of its past two conference-less years, Brown had a major role in recruiting as well as developing the Tornado’s offensive and defensive approach.
With a relationship already established with King’s incoming recruits, Brown said every player he’s spoken with is still planning on joining the Tornado.
“[McClarrinon] gave me quite a bit of responsibility, which I enjoyed,” Brown said. “It’s definitely helped with the transition.”
King will have its hands full in Conference Carolinas, which features perennial Division II power Mount Olive and which will also add North Greenville next season, a team that defeated the Tornado five times in 2011, including ending King’s season in the NCCAA World Series.
“We’re going into a top-notch Division II baseball conference and it’s going to be tough week in and week out,” Brown said.
But King’s new leader said he won’t be happy with a middle-of-the-pack showing out of his first team.
“I think we want to set the bar as high as possible from the get-go,” Brown said. “I don’t want guys coming in here with the idea that mediocre is acceptable. Every day we’re going to come in with the idea that we’re preparing to be conference champs.”
nhubbard@bristolnews.com | Twitter: @Hubbard_BHCSprt | (276) 645-2543
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