Members of a Nebraska lake that is popular with Kansas campers are being forced out
8 June 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — The Wichita State Univeristy Shockers baseball program officially has a new leader, as Brian Green was introduced as the head coach on Wednesday.
Green, who spent the last five seasons at the helm of the Washington State baseball program, is first tasked with bringing the more than 30 players out of the transfer portal and back to the Shockers program.
He’s not shying away from the challenge, though. Green said he’s reaching out to every one of the players to sell them on his vision for the program.
“I called (the players in the transfer portal), and I said, ‘Look, you are in a leverage situation. Good for you. But you have an opportunity to have a great year because this program is a storied program, is great, and you are going to have a coaching staff that will be committed to the development of you and relationships.’ That’s what it will be about,” Green said.
Wichita State athletic director Kevin Saal spoke to Green’s authenticity during the news conference.
“You can see the authenticity in how genuine he is, and emotionally he is picking up a mantle of traditional power and understands the responsibility that comes with that,” Saal said. “We said that it’s going to take a partnership, and we were able to articulate that and come together.”
Shockers legends like Gene Stephenson and Mike Pelfrey were in attendance for Wednesday’s introduction. One thing Green strongly emphasized during his time at the podium was getting the 30 players who are in the transfer portal to come back and play for the Shockers.
“It’s Wichita State, it’s history, it’s the facility, it’s an opportunity to build, grow, and it’s an opportunity for me. It’s a much different opportunity for my family. This isn’t a rebuild. This is an opportunity for my family to come to a program that is good and ready to go if I can keep those darn 30 guys out of the portal,” Green said.
A native of Temecula, California, Green has been in the college baseball coaching world since 1994, coaching at Washington State, New Mexico State, Oregon State, UCA, Kentucky and other stops as both an assistant and head coach. He holds an overall head coaching record of 249-198.
At New Mexico State, a program that hadn’t seen much success on the diamond, he took the team from the bottom of the Western Athletic Conference and led them to an NCAA Tournament in 2018.
In his most recent stop in Pullman, Washington, Green took a team that had won 51 games in three seasons and nearly doubled it in the same amount of time, finishing with a record of 91-76 between 2020 and 2023 (the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19).