Kevin Leighton (born August 28, 1979) is an American

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

coach and former player, who is the current head baseball coach of the

Fordham Rams The Fordham Rams are the varsity sports teams for Fordham University. Their colors are maroon and white. The Fordham Rams are members of NCAA Division I and compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference for most sports. In football, the Rams play in t ...

. He played

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

for the

Seton Hall Pirates The Seton Hall Pirates are the intercollegiate athletic sports teams representing Seton Hall University, located in South Orange, New Jersey. The Pirates compete as a member of the NCAA Division I level (non-football sub-level), primarily competi ...

from 1998 to 2001. He served as the head coach of the

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

(2002–2005).

Playing career

After a successful high school career in

Brewster, New York Brewster is a village and the principal settlement within the town of Southeast in Putnam County, New York. Its population was 2,390 at the time of the 2010 census. The village, which is the most densely populated portion of the county, was nam ...

, Leighton was drafted in the

1997 MLB Draft The 1997 First-Year Player Draft, Major League Baseball's annual amateur draft of high school and college baseball players, was held on June 2 and 3, 1997. A total of 1607 players were drafted over the course of 92 rounds. First round selections ...

by the

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...

. He instead chose to attend college, and played four seasons with

Seton Hall Seton Hall University (SHU) is a private Catholic research university in South Orange, New Jersey. Founded in 1856 by then-Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley and named after his aunt, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Seton Hall is the oldest diocesan u ...

, helping the Pirates to the 2001 Big East Conference baseball tournament title, and a pair of

NCAA Division I Baseball Championship The NCAA Division I Baseball Championship is held each year from May through June and features 64 college baseball teams in the United States, culminating in the eight-team Men's College World Series at Charles Schwab Field Omaha in Omaha, Nebr ...

appearances. Leighton earned his degree from Seton Hall in 2001, and would later add a master's degree from

Manhattan College Manhattan College is a private, Catholic, liberal arts university in the Bronx, New York City. Originally established in 1853 by the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Christian Brothers) as an academy for day students, it was la ...

Coaching career

After graduating, Leighton accepted an assistant coach position at

, serving under then-head coach Steve Trimper. With Trimper's departure for

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

, Leighton was elevated to head coach, after just four years as an assistant. He led the Jaspers to a pair of Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference baseball tournament titles and

appearances. In his first season, the Jaspers won the MAAC Tournament and advanced to regional final the NCAA tournament, resulting in Leighton being named the

American Baseball Coaches Association The American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) is the world's largest amateur baseball coaching organization. It was founded in 1945 as the American Association of College Baseball Coaches. Now, the ABCA is composed of over 13,000 baseball coac ...

Northeast Region Coach of the Year in 2006. Manhattan would repeat the performance in 2011, but fell in both NCAA tournament games. In his time at Manhattan, Leighton coached 51 All-Conference players and produced eleven professional players. On July 18, 2012, Leighton was named head coach at Fordham.

Head coaching record

This table shows Leighton's record as a head coach at the Division I level.

References

External links

List of current NCAA Division I baseball coaches The following is a list of current NCAA Division I baseball coaches. Currently, 297 programs compete at the Division I level in NCAA college baseball. Each program employs a head coach. The longest-tenured head coach is Tony Rossi, who has been ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leighton, Kevin Living people 1979 births People from Brewster, New York Fordham Rams baseball coaches Manhattan Jaspers baseball coaches Manhattan College alumni Seton Hall Pirates baseball players Baseball coaches from New York (state)