Rob Sheppard is an American

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 ...

coach who has been the head coach at

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 ...

since the start of the 2004 season. Sheppard was also the Pirates' interim head coach in 2001. He succeeded his father,

Mike Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and docume ...

, who had been Seton Hall's head coach since 1973. Under Sheppard, the Pirates have appeared in two NCAA tournaments.

Playing career

Sheppard, a

alumnus, played baseball at the school from 1989–1992. He captained the team his senior season, and the Pirates appeared in the Big East tournament in each of his four seasons. He was a career .278 hitter for the Pirates.

Coaching career

After graduating in 1992, Sheppard spent two years coaching American Legion and high school baseball before joining his father's staff at Seton Hall as an assistant in 1995. He held this position for six seasons. In 2001, Sheppard served as interim head coach while his father missed the season due to

heart surgery Cardiac surgery, or cardiovascular surgery, is surgery on the heart or great vessels performed by cardiac surgeons. It is often used to treat complications of ischemic heart disease (for example, with coronary artery bypass grafting); to corr ...

. The Pirates went 14–11–1 in conference play to tie for third in the Big East, then went 4–0 at the Big East tournament, defeating

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...

in the championship game to earn the program's second straight NCAA tournament berth. At the Clemson Regional, the Pirates went 2–2, beating top-seeded

South Alabama South Alabama is the various parts of southern Alabama. Although it is not a strictly defined geographic region, it generally includes all Alabama counties south of the Black Belt. In that view, ''South Alabama'' consists of just the two counties ...

twice and losing to Clemson in the regional final. Future

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 ...

and Fordham head coach Kevin Leighton played for Sheppard on the 2001 team. Mike Sheppard returned from 2002–2003, during which time Rob served as associate head coach. His father resigned after the 2003 season, and Rob served as interim head coach in 2004 before being named to the position permanently ahead of the 2005 season. Between 2004–2010, Seton Hall had only two winning seasons (2008 and 2009) and made only one Big East Tournament appearance (

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

). In 2011, however, the Pirates returned to the NCAA tournament. They went 4–0 at the Big East tournament, defeating St. John's in the championship game to earn the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. There, they went 1–2 at the College Station Regional. From 2011–2014, Seton Hall had four straight 30-win seasons, including a high of 39 in 2014, its first year in the new

Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and M ...

Head coaching record

Below is a table of Sheppard's records as a collegiate head baseball coach.

Personal

Sheppard is the

brother-in-law A sibling-in-law is the spouse of one's sibling, or the sibling of one's spouse, or the person who is married to the sibling of one's spouse.Cambridge Dictionaries Online.Family: non-blood relations. More commonly, a sibling-in-law is referred ...

of St. John's head coach

Ed Blankmeyer Ed Blankmeyer (born December 15, 1954) is an American professional baseball coach and former second baseman. He is the manager of the Brooklyn Cyclones of the New York–Penn League. Career Blankmeyer played college baseball at Seton Hall Univers ...

, who is married to his sister, Susan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sheppard, Rob Living people Seton Hall Pirates baseball players Seton Hall Pirates baseball coaches High school baseball coaches in the United States Year of birth missing (living people)

Playing career

Coaching career

Head coaching record

Personal

See also

References