Greg Lovelady, UCF Knights

Greg Lovelady is in his first season as head baseball coach of the UCF Knights. He arrived at Central Florida after spending three years as the head coach at Wright State, where he led the Raiders to consecutive runner-up finishes at the NCAA Regionals in 2015 and 2016. Wright State won the Horizon League Regular Season or Tournament Championship (or both) in each of his three seasons at the helm. He was named the 2014 and 2016 Horizon League Coach of the Year. In 2015 and 2016, Lovelady’s Wright State squads reached the championship round at an NCAA Regional. The Raiders won a school-record 46 games2016, after posting a then-school record 43 wins in 2015. Prior to becoming head coach at Wright State, he served the Raiders as an assistant or associate head coach from 2005-13. He was the recruiting coordinator, pitching coach and worked with the catchers during that nine-year stretch. The Raiders advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 2006, 2009 and 2011.

During the 2016 campaign, Lovelady’s Wright State squad led the Horizon League in 14 statistical categories. The Raiders were tops in the league in: hits, walks, runs scored, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, triples, home runs, hit batsmen, sacrifice bunts, sacrifice flies, earned-run average, hits allowed, walks allowed and strikeout-to-walk ratio. Wright State was No. 5 in the nation last season in walks allowed, No. 15 in walks and No. 19 in runs scored.

Lovelady was born in Miami and went on to win two national championships as a player for the hometown University of Miami Hurricanes. A finance major in school, he was the starting catcher on Miami’s 1999 and 2001 College World Series-winning squads. He was a team captain on the 2001 championship team and was a four-year letterman. Following his playing days, Lovelady began his coaching career at Miami under head coach Jim Morris from 2002-04. During his time as a player and coach at Miami, Lovelady never missed the postseason and advanced to the super regional round seven times, while earning trips to Omaha and the College World Series five times.

His winning touch has continued at UCF with the Knights, who won 10 of their first 11 games to open the 2017 season.