The speculation of a few weeks ago was indeed correct, the Baseball team's new head coach will be Gregg Ritichie, alum ('86) and the current hitting coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

I always love the "deny, deny, deny" part of public relations (Hatchet article), but I suppose for a coach in a professional organization, not annoucing before the end of the Major League season was the honorable thing to do.

Here's some really good articles on Ritchie and the work he's done (especially with Andrew McCutchen):

Sports Illustrated & Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Don't know what his contract is like with the Pirates, so I'd be intirgued to know if being the head coach at GW means a pay cut. But overall, this is another great hire.

Nero has really raised the bar on coach hires.

Not sure how you say that NJ Colonial. So far his major hires have been: An America East Head coach, A Big East Assistant, and the Pittsburgh Pirates (and former alum) Ritchie. Not saying these aren't or won't  be good or great hires but saying he raised the bar is simply not true and even if is eventually true certainly not yet since ML has a losing record thus far, Tsipis hasn't coached a game yet and one wonders why Ritchie would dump MLB for a B level college baseball job other than that it is his alma mater. I doubt he comes if he wasn't a GW guy.

Bilsky hired a America East head coach (Jarvis), and a Big 12 assistant/ WAC Head coach (McKeown) who were pretty successful at GW.

Kvancz hired a former Big 12 head coach (Penders) and a Big East assistant (Hobbs), the latter led us to 3 straight NCAAs and the best record/ranking in GW history. Tom Walter was also a pretty good baseball hire.

So while I like all 3 hires let's first see how they pan out before showering Nero with accolades. I guess it's my Missouri upbringing haha.

...so shoot me, I'm an optimist.  And at least we no longer have an A.D. who uses GW as an extension of the UConn pension system.