New baseball coach announced. Hopefully Gragg got it right the second time around. He certainly has some impressive credentials. Looks like NU utilized a search firm this time around.
Who is Ben Greenspan?? 🤷‍♂️
- Thread starter CoralSpringsCat
- Start date
Ben Greenspan Named Head Baseball Coach - Northwestern Athletics
Ben Greenspan has been named Northwestern's head baseball coach, Vice President for Athletics & Recreation Derrick Gragg announced on Friday. Previously ...
Seems like a really nice hire on paper.
A sloppy process seems pretty par for the course with current leadership. First time I’ve ever been thankful for a search firm.
A sloppy process seems pretty par for the course with current leadership. First time I’ve ever been thankful for a search firm.
Looks like he can recruit. Don’t really follow Michigan baseball but they have to be better than the cats
I think I remember Kendall Rogers applauding the Jim Foster hire at the time.
Greenspan is going to have to be a superb recruiter to build this program. I say build instead of rebuild because the baseball team has barely ever been relevant in the Big 10, let alone nationally.
I guess the appeal of the job is incredible security. Foster set the bar so low that as long as Greenspan is a relatively normal human being who treats people with respect and decency, he should be safe regardless of record.
Greenspan is going to have to be a superb recruiter to build this program. I say build instead of rebuild because the baseball team has barely ever been relevant in the Big 10, let alone nationally.
I guess the appeal of the job is incredible security. Foster set the bar so low that as long as Greenspan is a relatively normal human being who treats people with respect and decency, he should be safe regardless of record.
Found this on UM site (no date, unfortunately, but I assume this was his role until coming to NU):
Ben Greenspan joins the Michigan program as the Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator from California Polytechnic State University. He was named one of the top Assistant Coaches to watch in Collegiate Baseball by D1 Baseball.
Greenspan spent one season at Cal Poly where he served as the assistant coach. The Cal Poly Mustangs finished with a 37-21 record with two All-Americans. Prior to his time in San Luis Obispo, Greenspan spent six seasons with current Michigan Head Coach Tracy Smith at Arizona State. Greenspan established himself as an elite recruiter during this time assembling four top-10 classes in seven seasons with the Sun Devils including top talents like Spencer Torkelson and Hunter Bishop. Both players were top-10 picks in the MLB draft. He also served as the third base coach, academic liaison, and the liaison to professional scouts and teams among other responsibilities.
Before his time working with Smith at ASU, Greenspan worked with Smith at Indiana where he served six seasons as an assistant coach at Indiana with one year as the recruiting coordinator as well. In his time at Indiana, he helped develop some more elite talent including Kyle Schwarber, current Michigan Director of Player Personnel and former MLB catcher Josh Phegley, and the 2010 Big Ten Player of the year Alex Dickerson.
As a player, Greenspan played at the University of Connecticut at catcher and first base for his first two years until he transferred to Indiana University. At Indiana, Greenspan was named team captain and earned Academic All-Big Ten honors in his final season with the team in 2007.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Sport Marketing and Management in 2007 and a master's degree in Sport Administration in 2008 from Indiana.
Greenspan is originally from West Point, N.Y., and is married to his wife, Janine. The pair have two children, Grayson and Adalyn.
Ben Greenspan joins the Michigan program as the Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator from California Polytechnic State University. He was named one of the top Assistant Coaches to watch in Collegiate Baseball by D1 Baseball.
Greenspan spent one season at Cal Poly where he served as the assistant coach. The Cal Poly Mustangs finished with a 37-21 record with two All-Americans. Prior to his time in San Luis Obispo, Greenspan spent six seasons with current Michigan Head Coach Tracy Smith at Arizona State. Greenspan established himself as an elite recruiter during this time assembling four top-10 classes in seven seasons with the Sun Devils including top talents like Spencer Torkelson and Hunter Bishop. Both players were top-10 picks in the MLB draft. He also served as the third base coach, academic liaison, and the liaison to professional scouts and teams among other responsibilities.
Before his time working with Smith at ASU, Greenspan worked with Smith at Indiana where he served six seasons as an assistant coach at Indiana with one year as the recruiting coordinator as well. In his time at Indiana, he helped develop some more elite talent including Kyle Schwarber, current Michigan Director of Player Personnel and former MLB catcher Josh Phegley, and the 2010 Big Ten Player of the year Alex Dickerson.
As a player, Greenspan played at the University of Connecticut at catcher and first base for his first two years until he transferred to Indiana University. At Indiana, Greenspan was named team captain and earned Academic All-Big Ten honors in his final season with the team in 2007.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Sport Marketing and Management in 2007 and a master's degree in Sport Administration in 2008 from Indiana.
Greenspan is originally from West Point, N.Y., and is married to his wife, Janine. The pair have two children, Grayson and Adalyn.
He’s recruited and coached some big time players…names like Schwarber, Bichette, Torkelson and Royce Lewis. He appears to have a much higher pedigree than Foster albeit not as the head guy. The hire looks terrific on paper, wishing him the best. I think he’ll have an easier road than the new head football coach. But what do I know? I was excited about the Foster hire when it was announced.
This does seem promising. I wonder if he will keep Brian Anderson on his staff. The remaining players seem to like Anderson, and having a recent major leaguer on staff could be attractive to recruits.
I hope Lunker takes an active role in getting Baseball Alumni involved with the program. Baseball sponsored tailgates before home football games that generally had pretty good turnouts. A Fall golf tournament seems to have been abandoned but was well attended when held. The new facilities are far superior to their primitive predecessors and offer some enticements for recruits to choose NU.
Recruiting to a costly northern university is difficult due to NCAA limited scholarships and high residual costs becoming a family responsibility. Vanderbilt has succeeded under similar circumstances. NU had some excellent talent recently but many transferred to UVA, Wake Forest etc where they contributed to NCAA teams.
Baseball schedules about 60 games a year, so travel may be the most difficult of any of the NU sponsored teams. The addition of 4 West Coast teams may make this even more onerous. The academic stress is also high because many professors do not care about a student athlete's schedule. I can only guess that this is a bigger problem now than years ago.
Recruiting to a costly northern university is difficult due to NCAA limited scholarships and high residual costs becoming a family responsibility. Vanderbilt has succeeded under similar circumstances. NU had some excellent talent recently but many transferred to UVA, Wake Forest etc where they contributed to NCAA teams.
Baseball schedules about 60 games a year, so travel may be the most difficult of any of the NU sponsored teams. The addition of 4 West Coast teams may make this even more onerous. The academic stress is also high because many professors do not care about a student athlete's schedule. I can only guess that this is a bigger problem now than years ago.
Let's hope Greenspan generates lots of non-irrational exuberance for NU baseball.
It would be nice if they hired Beacom or Napoleon back but that’s a pipe dream since there are lawsuits. I really hope the new guy is good with the alumni. Spence was amazing when he was here and as we all know Foster didn’t even show up to alumni weekend.
Greenspan looks to have a solid B1G Ten background. Never been a head coach as far as I can tell. What are you hearing in your circles? Seems like a very quick search process, was not expecting an announcement so quickly. Not sure if that’s good or bad. 🤷‍♂️
Not a ton because I feel like everyone is so dejected from Foster that they have quite literally checked out. I do think that this is a good safe hire and the guy seems to be a really good guy/coach. Foster never had the kind of outpouring of support from other coaches like we are seeing with this hire, so I am optimistic but there was very little noise about the hire from everyone I know.
The Wildcat Weekly email today had a link to an article with many positive quotes about Greenspan, including from Kyle Schwarber whom he coached at IU.
