CARY, N.C. – USA Baseball today completed the coaching staff for the 2023 Collegiate National Team, highlighted by the addition of three Division I head coaches: Reggie Christiansen (Sacramento State), Andy Stankiewicz (USC), and José Vázquez (Alabama State). Additionally, East Carolina student manager Brady Austin and Stanford Pitching Coach Thomas Eager join the staff to help lead the U.S. in a pair of friendship series against Chinese Taipei and Japan this summer.

Eager joins the staff as pitching coach and Christiansen will be the team’s bench coach. Vázquez and Stankiewicz will be the first and third base coaches, respectively, and Austin will serve as bullpen coach. The group will serve under longtime Cal Poly Head Coach and 2023 Collegiate National Team Manager Larry Lee, who is making his Team USA managerial debut this summer. Lee previously held a stint as an assistant coach with the Collegiate National Team in 2017.

“We are looking forward to welcoming Brady, Reggie, Thomas, Andy, and José to our 2023 coaching staff,” said General Manager of Collegiate and Professional National Teams Eric Campbell. “This staff features some of the best and brightest college baseball coaches in the nation, and we are confident that they will guide our team to a great deal of success this summer. Led by Larry, our staff will offer unparalleled guidance to the top non-draft eligible players in the country.”

This summer will mark the Team USA coaching debuts for four of the five assistants on the staff. Stankiewicz is the only assistant who owns coaching experience with Team USA, as he has been the 18U National Team Manager on two separate occasions and served as an assistant for the Collegiate National Team in 2012. Stankiewicz was named USA Baseball’s Rod Dedeaux Coach of the Year in 2014 after leading the 18U National Team to a gold medal at the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) U-18 Baseball World Cup Americas Qualifier. Austin has served on the Collegiate National Team Training Camp staff, while 2023 will be the first involvement with USA Baseball for Christiansen, Eager, and Vázquez.

Including Lee, the four head coaches on the 2023 coaching staff have amassed 1,677 wins at the Division I level, reaching nine NCAA Tournaments. The staff has combined to win seven regular season conference championships and six conference tournament titles. In addition, they have combined for nine conference Coach of the Year awards.

The coaching staff will be responsible for guiding Team USA in five-game friendship series against Chinese Taipei and Japan this summer. After a four-game Stars vs. Stripes series at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina, the U.S. will announce its final 26-man roster before taking on Chinese Taipei in several different locations across North Carolina. The two sides will meet at the National Training Complex (Cary), Atrium Health Ballpark (Kannapolis), Durham Bulls Athletic Park (Durham), and Segra Stadium (Fayetteville). Team USA will then play a five-game set against Japan at the National Training Complex and Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park in Charleston, South Carolina.

The full coaching staff for the 2023 Collegiate National Team is as follows (Coaches’ bios enclosed below):

• Manager: Larry Lee (Cal Poly)
• Bench Coach: Reggie Christiansen (Sacramento State)
• Pitching Coach: Thomas Eager (Stanford)
• First Base Coach: José Vázquez (Alabama State)
• Third Base Coach: Andy Stankiewicz (USC)
• Bullpen Coach: Brady Austin (East Carolina)

*2023 Collegiate National Team Staff Bios:
*

Currently a student manager at East Carolina, Brady Austin joins the Collegiate National Team staff as bullpen coach. This summer will be Austin’s third involvement with the Collegiate National Team but his first on the coaching staff as he most recently assisted at the 2022 Training Camp. Austin has been a student manager for the East Carolina baseball program since 2020. In that role, Austin throws batting practice, catches bullpens, assists with practices, and helps organize the program’s summer camps. He has previously been an instructor at Diamond Stars Baseball in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he assisted with hitting and pitching lessons.

Sacramento State Head Coach Reggie Christiansen will serve as the bench coach for the stars and stripes in 2023. Following his 13th season at the helm of the Hornets, Christiansen has led the program to eleven straight 30+ win seasons. The two-time Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Coach of the Year took over the program in 2011 and quickly turned it around, as the Hornets won the WAC regular season championship for the first time in program history in 2012. The success continued in 2014 as Christiansen’s team advanced to its first NCAA Regional in program history, eliminating nationally-ranked Arizona State from the San Luis Obispo Regional.

Sacramento State has reached the NCAA Regional twice more since first accomplishing the feat in 2014, clinching spots in 2017 and 2019. Twenty-four players have been selected in the Major League Baseball (MLB) First-Year Player Draft since Christiansen took over in 2011, including at least one player in 10 of the last 11 drafts. Christiansen began his coaching career at his alma mater, Menlo College, where he was the head coach in 2002. He served as an assistant at Kansas from 2003-2004 and spent four years as the head coach at South Dakota State prior to taking over at Sacramento State.

Stanford Pitching Coach and Recruiting Coordinator Thomas Eager joins the Team USA coaching staff as pitching coach. Eager just completed his sixth season with the Cardinal as they made their third-straight appearance at the College World Series in Omaha. Stanford’s pitching staff experienced great success in 2023, leading the Pac-12 and ranking sixth in the nation with 671 strikeouts. Under Eager’s guidance, Stanford pitchers have been named Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year in each of the past two seasons. Quinn Mathews earned the award in 2023 after Alex Williams won Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year and was named a semifinalist for the 2022 College Baseball Hall of Fame National Pitcher of the Year Award a season ago. Eager’s staff enjoyed similar success in 2022 as the group led the Pac-12 with nine shutouts and ranked third with a 4.23 ERA. In Eager’s first season leading the pitchers in 2018, the staff registered a 2.83 ERA, the second lowest in the nation. Prior to joining Stanford’s staff, Eager was a coach at Cal for two seasons and Cal Poly–where he played for two years in 2006 and 2007–for five campaigns.

Three-time USA Baseball coach and current University of Southern California Head Coach Andy Stankiewicz joins the Team USA staff as third base coach. After 11 years at Grand Canyon University, Stankiewicz was named the head coach at USC in July 2022. He had a successful first season, leading the Trojans to a 34-23-1 record–including a 26-6 mark at home–and a spot in the Pac-12 Conference Tournament. At GCU, Stankiewicz won five regular season WAC titles and led the Lopes to two consecutive NCAA Tournaments in 2021 and 2022. Stankiewicz took over at Grand Canyon when the program was at the Division II level in 2012, successfully leading the transition to Division I in 2014. Seventeen players were chosen in the Major League Baseball (MLB) First-Year Player Draft during his time at GCU.

Stankiewicz, the 2014 USA Baseball Rod Deadeaux Coach of the Year, brings a bevy of international experience with Team USA to the staff. He led the 18U National Team to gold medals as manager at the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup Americas Qualifier in 2014 and the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup in 2017. Additionally, Stankiewicz captured a bronze medal as an assistant coach at Honkbalweek Haarlem in the Netherlands with the Collegiate National Team in 2012. In his playing career, Stankiewicz spent seven seasons split between the New York Yankees, Houston Astros, Montreal Expos, and Arizona Diamondbacks. As a rookie, he played in a career-high 116 games for New York in 1992 and tallied 107 hits. Stankiewicz spent two seasons with the Houston Astros and then highlighted a two-year stint in Montreal with a .286 batting average in 1996. He played the final season of his career with Arizona in 1998.

Alabama State Head Coach José Vázquez will make his coaching debut with Team USA as the first base coach in 2023. Vázquez just wrapped up his seventh season at the helm of the Hornets as he has built the program into one of the perennial contenders in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). The team went 41-18 in 2023, posting a 26-4 record in conference play and becoming the fifth SWAC member ever to win 40 or more games in a season. Vázquez earned SWAC Coach of the Year honors in 2022 after he led the Hornets to one of their best seasons in program history, winning the SWAC Tournament and clinching a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Vázquez–who has never finished a season below .500 at the helm of the Hornets–has a 201-120 all-time record since taking over the program in 2016, including a 121-44 mark in conference play. Prior to becoming the head coach, Vázquez was an assistant for the Hornets from 2012-2016 after serving in the same role at Bethune-Cookman from 2003-2011. He spent one season as a player at Bethune-Cookman in 2002 after transferring from Morningside College and earned all-conference honors at catcher that season.

For more information on the 2023 Collegiate National Team, follow @USABaseballCNT on Twitter.