Alabama Athletic Director Greg Byrne with Brad Bohannon, right / Image courtesy of University of Alabama Athletics on Facebook
TUSCALOOSA – New Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon spent Monday morning meeting squad members, then addressing the media in his first news conference after being hired last week by athletic director Greg Byrne.
Then it was back to unfinished business. Bohannon, an assistant coach with Auburn University, took a charter plane back to Tallahassee for the final game in the NCAA Regional between the Tigers and Florida State University.
"I really think anything can be achieved here at the University of Alabama," Bohannon said during the news conference. "My goal going forward is to make Alabama the absolute best place to play college baseball in the country. We have everything we need in place to make it happen. We're going to do it by being a players-first program."
Bohannon has spent the last two years as an assistant at Auburn, seeing the Tigers turn around a tough 2016 season by going 35-24 in the 2017 regular season, finishing 16-14 in the SEC and getting to the "if -necessary" game in the NCAA regional with Florida State.
Bohannon was hoping his time with Auburn would not end Monday night. A victory over Florida State and the Tigers would move on to the super regionals next weekend, but Auburn was shut out by FSU.
Alabama was 19-34-1 in the spring, suffering its worst season since 1980. The Tide was only 5-24-1 in the SEC, failing to get a berth to the conference tournament a couple of weeks ago.
Bohannon immediately began putting together a coaching staff and his first roster, with a series of players to return to the Capstone next year with the new leader.
The 2017 recruiting class has been pretty much settled by the previous staff. Among the signees are Cullman pitcher Jacob Heatherly and infielder Noah Fondren. Both have remain committed to Alabama baseball after Greg Goff was recently fired following one season in Tuscaloosa.
In total, Bohannon spent three and a half hours at the university before returning to Tallahassee Monday. Bohannon, who has 11 years of coaching experience in the SEC, with Kentucky and Auburn, is ready to take the program and do what it takes to have Alabama baseball to be seriously looked at again in the conference and across the country.
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