Baseball
- Title:
- Volunteer Coach
- Email:
- dsimmons@ia.ua.edu
Derek Simmons enters his first season at Alabama in 2016. Officially hired on Monday, July 18, 2016, Simmons comes to the Capstone after spending four years as an assistant coach at Kennesaw State. He will focus primarily on working with the hitters and infielders, while also assisting in the team’s recruiting efforts.
Simmons was at KSU from 2012-16, working as the team’s hitting coach while helping tutor the infielders and lead the Owls’ recruiting efforts. His recruiting classes were ranked nationally three separate times by Collegiate Baseball News and all four of his classes were tabbed as the top-ranked class in the Atlantic Sun Conference by Baseball America.
Under Simmons’ guidance in 2016, Kennesaw batted .294 as a team on the way to a 17-4 mark in Atlantic Sun play. His hitters notched 85 doubles, 12 triples and 40 home runs to lead one of the Athletic Sun’s top offenses and help KSU claim its first regular season conference title in program history. Seven Owl hitters batted above the .300 mark and the team’s 578 hits ranked fifth in Kennesaw single-season history.
He also played a key role in the Owls’ historical 2014 season in which Kennesaw State claimed its first ever A-Sun Conference Championship and a postseason spot in the NCAA Tallahassee Regional and then advancing to a Super Regional. The Owls wrapped up the 2014 stretch with the third-most hits nationally at 677, and posted a .297 team average that ranked 18th overall. Simmons also coached the hitters to a national ranking in runs (21st) and scoring (38th), while the Owls led the A-Sun in runs scored per game (6.0).
In that 2014 campaign, catcher Max Pentecost led the nation in total hits with 113 and was second in batting average at .422 while breaking every major offensive record in school history. Pentecost would go on to win the Johnny Bench Award, given to the nation’s top catcher, and was a unanimous All-America selection before his selection at pick No. 11 by the Toronto Blue Jays, the highest draft pick in Kennesaw State history.
Prior to his time at KSU, Simmons spent two seasons at Central Michigan, where he also worked with the infielders and assisted with hitters. During his time in Mount Pleasant, he coached three All-MAC performers and has coached double-digit all-conference performers across his two career stops as an assistant.
In the offseason, Simmons has spent the previous two summers coaching the USA Baseball 18-and-under National Team at the Tournament of Stars, winning gold and silver medals in the process. He has also tutored the Most Valuable Player of the Cape Cod League, the premier summer collegiate league, and the National Summer Player of the Year.
During his six-year coaching career, Simmons has produced a Johnny Bench Award and Dick Howser Trophy winner. He has also tutored an ABCA District Player of the Year, Atlantic Sun Player of the Year and a finalist for the Olson Award, given annually to college baseball’s breakout player of the year, and a Golden Spikes Award finalist. In addition to his players who have claimed awards, Simmons’ resume features five All-American selections, 21 All-Conference selections and six Major League Baseball draft picks, five of which went in the top 10 rounds of the draft. His teams have appeared in three conference championships and made one NCAA Super Regional appearance.
As a player, Simmons played for Greg Goff at Montevallo from 2006-07 before closing out his final two years of collegiate play at Georgia State. While at Montevallo, he helped lead the Falcons to their first Gulf South Conference championship, South Regional championship and a berth in the 2006 Division II College World Series. That year’s team wrapped up the season ranked third nationally.
Simmons then transferred to Georgia State, becoming the first player in program history to earn first team All-Colonial Athletic Conference honors twice in his career (2008, 2009). He was named GSU’s 2008 MVP on offense and was the 2009 team captain. Simmons finished his career in Georgia State’s top-10 single-season ranks for average, RBI, home runs, at-bats, runs scored, hit by pitches, on-base and slugging percentage. He guided the Panthers to their first ever CAA conference title and the school’s first ever NCAA Regional appearance in 2009. He went on to play professionally for the Gateway Grizzlies of the Frontier League.
A native of Roswell, Ga., Simmons graduated from Georgia State in May of 2009 with a degree in sociology. He and his wife, Erin, have one daughter, Isabella, and a son, Braxton.
