COLLEGE BASEBALL: VI tabs ex-VHS slugger Christian as new coach

There’s a new baseball boss on the other side of Bristol as well.

Two days after King College announced a new head baseball coach, Virginia Intermont did the same Wednesday, naming former Virginia High star Jeremy Christian to lead its program.

Christian is a familiar face not only in Bristol, but also around most of the Appalachian Athletic Conference. The ex-Bearcats slugger played at Milligan after his Virginia High career ended in 1998 and coached as an assistant at both Union and VI prior to spending last year off the diamond.

Christian also served as a student-assistant in the baseball strength and conditioning program at the University of Tennessee while earning a master’s degree.

His new post at VI will give him his own team to run for the first time.

“I’ve waited for a long time to get back into the coaching industry as a head coach,” Christian said in a phone interview. “It’s always been a dream job to me to have that opportunity, to get that first opportunity as a head coach.”

Christian, who won a state title as a Bearcats player, takes over a VI program that is just two years removed from a paltry two-win season. The Cobras, however, began to show signs of getting back on track with a 10-win improvement in 2010 and in 2011 recoded their first AAC tournament victory in more than five years.

Just as the college as a whole has begun to turn a corner after financial problems in recent years, Christian said the VI baseball program is moving in the right direction.

“We are through the depths,” he said. “We’re on the way up. It’s going to be a hard climb, but we can do it.”

Christian replaces Josh Swain, a VI alum who led the team for four years. VI athletic director Chris Holt declined to elaborate on the circumstances of Swain’s departure.

“We certainly appreciate coach Swain’s commitment to the school and we wish him the best moving forward,” Holt said.

In addition to his past experience at VI, Holt said Christian’s baseball mentors, which include prominent coaching names in local college and high school baseball circles such as Bart Osborne, Danny Clark, Gill Payne and Mark Daniels, should have him well prepared to step into his first head coaching gig.

“He just has an insatiable passion for baseball, for player development,” Holt said. “He knows this area. He knows the Northeast Tennessee and the Southwest Virginia coaches and all the inner workings of that.”

With only around 15-20 players committed to the 2012 roster, Christian said his first task will be hitting the recruiting trail hard this summer in an effort to build up the program’s numbers.

“I’m going to double the roster size really here in about two months,” he said. “The work has just begun. It’s sunup to sundown and then some.”

Holt said the work ethic Christian displayed during his stint as a VI assistant made him an attractive head coach candidate.

“He was volunteering for us and I could see his impact in recruiting when he was able to be with us on a limited basis,” Holt said. “I just felt like, boy, what an impact this guy could be for us if we could have him committed to us full time.”

Once games resume again next spring, Christian said his coaching strategy will revolve around smart offense and mistake-free defense. Although he was a fearsome slugger often occupying the cleanup spot in the lineup during his Virginia High days, Christian said he won’t expect his VI teams to bludgeon their way to victories.

“We’re going to be an execution-style offense,” he said. “That’s a big thing for me. We will run like wildfire. We’re really going to put pressure on the defense.”

While not promising any immediate miracles, Christian said his expectations are that the Cobras will soon be moving up the AAC standings with win totals eventually climbing back to figures last seen in bygone decades.

“We’ve got a bunch of rings in the archives,” he said. “It’s time to bring some back to Bristol.” 

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