Matt Fincher, USC Upstate Spartans

Matt Fincher of the USC Upstate Spartans baseball program is in 20th season guiding the Atlantic Sun Conference team. Born in Atlanta and raised in Athens, Georgia, Fincher played college baseball at Wofford College for two years before spending his final two seasons as a catcher at Georgia College and State University. He wanted to be a college baseball coach since he was nine years and started to pursue that occupation by serving as a graduate assistant at Eastern Illinois University before returning to Georgia College as an assistant. Along the way he became a fixture as a coach in the summer collegiate leagues, including the Northeast Collegiate, Jayhawk, Cape Cod and Alaska Central leagues. In order to make ends meet while pursuing his life-long goal, Fincher worked various part-time jobs, including handling produce at a grocery store in the week hours and serving on the grounds crew for the Atlanta Braves in the early 1990s. He was an assistant coach at the University of Georgia for three years in the mid-1990s and spent one year as the interim head coach at Andrew College in 1997 prior to accepting the head coaching job at USC Spartanburg, which was later renamed USC Upstate. In his two decades with the Spartans, Fincher has overseen the growing university’s growth from the Division II ranks to Division I. As a Division II member, the Spartans had their best season in the Peach Belt Conference in 2004, and four years later made their D1 debut in the A-Sun. The 2017 Spartans have veteran depth at catcher, a talented but young infield, and a trio of outfielders that should produce offensively. The Spartans are also young on the mound, but Fincher believes that his 17 pitchers have the ability to make an impact as they gain confidence over the course of the spring campaign.