Steven James Rodríguez (born November 29, 1970) 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 t ...

coach and former second baseman/

shortstop Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically the position was assigned to defensive specialists wh ...

, who is the current hitting coach for the

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and a ...

. 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 p ...

for the

Pepperdine Waves The Pepperdine Waves are the athletics teams of Pepperdine University, located outside the city of Malibu, California. They compete at the Division I level of the NCAA. The school is a member of the West Coast Conference for the majority of its ...

from 1991 to 1992. He played in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB) during the 1995 season. He served as the head coach of the Pepperdine Waves (2004–2015) and the Baylor Bears (2016–2022). A native of

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

, he was selected by Boston in the fifth-round of the 1992 draft out of Pepperdine. He would play briefly for the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

and Detroit Tigers during the 1995 season. Rodríguez was hired as the 19th

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

of the

Baylor University Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the ...

baseball team on June 12, 2015.

Playing career

High school

Rodriguez attended Valley High School in

Winchester, Nevada Winchester is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Clark County, Nevada, United States that contains part of the Las Vegas Strip. It is one of a number of CDPs in the unincorporated urbanized area directly south of Las Ve ...

. Prior to being recruited by the

Pepperdine Waves baseball The Pepperdine Waves baseball team represents Pepperdine University in the sport of baseball. The Pepperdine Waves compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and in the West Coast Conference. They are curren ...

team, he had never heard of

Pepperdine University Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and th ...

and did not know where Malibu was. Nonetheless, he was won over by handwritten letters from coach

Andy Lopez Andrew Lopez (born November 30, 1953) is a retired American college baseball coach. He was most recently the head baseball coach at University of Arizona, and has served as the head baseball coach at Cal State Dominguez Hills, Pepperdine, and ...

College

A two-time All-American (1991–92), Rodríguez helped his team claim its only national championship in the

1992 College World Series The 1992 NCAA Division I baseball tournament was played at the end of the 1992 NCAA Division I baseball season to determine the national champion of college baseball. The tournament concluded with eight teams competing in the College World Series ...

, when he was named West Coast Conference Player of the Year and also was a member of the All-Tournament Team. Rodríguez collected a .419

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

–the third-highest single-season average in school history– and his 104 base hits that season are also a Pepperdine single-season record, as he finished with a .382 average in the round-robin phase of the

1991 Pan American Games The 1991 Pan American Games were held in Havana, Cuba from August 2 to August 18, 1991. There were 4,519 athletes from 39 countries of the PASO community, with events in 33 different sports. The main stadium was the Estadio Panamericano, a mul ...

for the Bronze Medal USA baseball team, earning Player of the Series honors against

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. Then, in 1992, Rodríguez was named one of the West Coast Conference's Top Fifty Athletes of all time.

Major League Baseball

In an 18-game major league career, Rodríguez was a .179 hitter (7-for-39) with five runs, two doubles, and two stolen bases without

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s or an RBI. He also played in the Red Sox, Tigers,

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

and

Montreal Expos The Montreal Expos (french: link=no, Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in t ...

minor league systems from 1992 to 1998, hitting .263 with 16 home runs and 205 RBI in 613 games.

Coaching career

Following his playing career, Rodríguez served as an

assistant coach A sports coach is a person coaching in sport, involved in the direction, instruction and training of a sports team or athlete. History The original sense of the word ''coach'' is that of a horse-drawn carriage, deriving ultimately from the Hun ...

at his alma mater from 2000 to 2003, and was the

from 2004 to 2015. He was hired as the sixteenth head coach in the history of the Pepperdine baseball program in June 2003, to become only the third former Pepperdine player head coach for the Waves in the program's sixty-five-year history. Taking over a young team in 2004, Rodríguez guided Pepperdine to the WCC Championship where the Waves swept conference rival

Loyola Marymount University Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private Jesuit and Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. It is located on the west side of the city near Playa Vista. LMU is the parent school to Loyola Law School, which is located ...

in the best-of-three WCC championship series. In 2015, Rodriguez was hired to be the head coach at Baylor. On July 7, 2022, Rodriguez joined the staff of the

as the team's hitting coach.

Head coaching records

Below is a table of Rodriguez's yearly records as an NCAA head baseball coach.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez, Steve 1970 births Living people All-American college baseball players American expatriate baseball players in Canada Baseball players at the 1991 Pan American Games Baseball coaches from Nevada Baseball players from Nevada Baylor Bears baseball coaches Boston Red Sox players Detroit Tigers players Major League Baseball infielders Ottawa Lynx players Pan American Games bronze medalists for the United States Pan American Games medalists in baseball Pawtucket Red Sox players Pepperdine Waves baseball coaches Pepperdine Waves baseball players Sportspeople from Las Vegas Texas Longhorns baseball coaches Toledo Mud Hens players Winter Haven Red Sox players Medalists at the 1991 Pan American Games American sportspeople of Salvadoran descent Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks players