Brian O'Connor

Head Baseball Coach, University of Virginia

National Advisory Board

After leading the Virginia baseball program to its first NCAA Championship in 2015, five-time ACC Coach of the Year and three-time national coach of the year Brian O'Connor reached yet another new level of success with the Cavaliers. Now in his 14th season as head coach of the Cavaliers, O'Connor has built his program into a college baseball powerhouse and turned Virginia Baseball into a national brand.

The numbers during O'Connor's first 13 years are staggering:

  • 2015 National Champions (first in program history)
  • Four College World Series appearances and two CWS Finals berths
  • 13 straight NCAA tournament appearances
  • Seven NCAA regional championships
  • Two ACC championships
  • Four 50-win seasons
  • 596 wins, including an NCAA-best 380 wins since 2009

O’Connor enters the 2017 season with a career record of 596-223-2 and a 244-133-1 record in ACC play after guiding Virginia to the program’s 13th-consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. Virginia is one of just five programs in the nation to earn a berth in the NCAA tournament in each of the last 13 seasons. This success has led to record crowds, excitement and national exposure for Virginia Baseball, highlighted by the Cavaliers’ national championship in 2015.

O'Connor boasts the third-highest winning percentage of all current head coaches in Division I baseball (72.7 percent). A three-time National Coach of the Year, O'Connor is the second fastest ACC coach to reach 500 career wins. Since 2009, UVA owns 41 postseason wins – second most in the nation.

Virginia has ranked among the top 20 nationally in attendance in each of the last seven seasons, including a program-best 142,496 fans in 2014 as UVA finished 11th in attendance. More than 110,000 fans have passed through the Davenport Field turnstiles in six of the last seven years.

Sixty-nine of O'Connor's Virginia players have been selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, including 42 in the last seven years. Fourteen former Cavaliers have reached the major leagues after playing for O'Connor, highlighted by Washington Nationals' all-star and Gold Glove third baseman Ryan Zimmerman.

Virginia has succeeded in the classroom as well. In 2011 the UVA baseball program earned a public recognition award from the NCAA for its multi-year Academic Progress Rate scores. Danny Hultzen was a Capital One First-Team Academic All-American in 2011, while Tyler Wilson was the winner of the esteemed Lowe's Senior CLASS Award for Baseball in 2011.

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