Less than two weeks after officially becoming LSU’s new head baseball coach Jay Johnson has finalized the two paid positions on his coaching staff.
A day after confirming the hiring of pitching coach Jason Kelly, Johnson was able to secure Dan Fitzgerald as his recruiting coordinator, D1Baseball reported Wednesday.
Fitzgerald spent the past nine seasons at Dallas Baptist University where he’s served in the role as associate head coach and recruiting coordinator. He could also coach third base and work with the infielders at LSU.
The deal for Fitzgerald, 43, is expected to be completed Thursday. He would replace Nolan Cain, who accepted a job last month in a similar role on the staff of Jim Schlossnagle at Texas A&M.
Dallas Baptist, under head coach Dan Heffner, has been among the nation’s most successful mid-major programs, that’s advanced to seven NCAA Regionals and appeared in its first Super Regional this past season where they lost two of three to Virginia.
Dallas Baptist of the Missouri Valley Conference finished 41-18.
Fitzgerald, a native of Edina, Minn., is regarded among the nation’s top recruiters after regularly attracting Top 30 classes to Dallas Baptist.
D1Baseball ranked Fitzgerald the nation’s No. 17 recruiter in 2016 and Baseball America tabbed him the nation’s No. 7 assistant coach in ’18.
Baseball America also conducted a survey in 2000, polling 90 of the nation’s head coaches who listed Fitzgerald seventh as the assistant with the best chance to make a good head coach one day.
Collegiate Baseball ranked Fitzgerald’s 2016 recruiting class No. 27 in the country and his ’15 class No. 32 nationally.
Fitzgerald recruited 58 players that earned All-Missouri Valley Conference honors, seven of which were also named All-Americans since his arrival in 2013 until 2020.
He also signed 30 players that became Major League Draft picks, including 11 in the Top 11 rounds.
Fitzgerald spent five seasons as head coach at Des Moines Area Community College, directing his program to five conference titles and four Junior College World Series appearances. He had 14 players drafted and 36 that signed Division I scholarships.
Fitzgerald began his career on the staff at the University of Iowa. He also coached at Northern Iowa Community College and Flagler College.
He attended and played baseball at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. and the University of Wisconsin-River Falls before graduating from the University of Minnesota.
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