2009 Baseball
TransouthPct.OverallPctStreakHomeAwayNeutral
4-17.19017-41.293Lost 210-156-261-0
Coaches
Shawn Yarbrough
Head Coach
 
    Shawn Yarbrough became MCU's baseball coach on August 15, 2008, replacing William Russell, who served as MCU's head baseball coach for four seasons from 2005-08.  A relative newlywed, Yarbrough and his wife, Tara, are residents of Paducah, Kentucky.  He is a graduate of Lone Oak High School.
 
     Last season, his first as a collegiate head coach, Yarbrough guided MCU to a 17-41 record with a 4-17 TSAC mark.  MCU won seven more games overall and four more TSAC games last season under Yarbrough than it did the previous season.
 
     Yarbrough is no stranger to teaching the fundamentals of baseball and played four seasons of collegiate baseball.  Most recently, in 2008, Yarbrough served as hitting coach and first baseball coach of the American Legion Paducah Post 31 baseball club. He also has been a substitute teacher for the McCracken County School District since 2005.
 
     Since 2007, he has owned and served as hitting instructor for Diamond Academy in Paducah, offering students from ages 8-22 private instruction in all facets of baseball and softball and core agility strengthening and vision training. Since 2005, Diamond Academy also has conducted college preparatory fall league, consisting of 56 juniors and seniors from the western Kentucky, southern Illinois, and western Tennessee regions.  Yarbrough has coached more than 20 student-athletes from western Kentucky who have signed college baseball scholarships in the past three seasons.
 
     Yarbrough also travels as a recommending scout for the Cincinnati Reds baseball club, evaluating players' capabilities and skills in the surrounding area and from 1999-2007, Yarbrough served as Assistant Store Manager for Foot Locker/Champs in Paducah, specializing in team fittings and team orders for footwear, bats, uniforms, bags, and team gear.
 
     A graduate of McNeese State University in Louisiana, Yarbrough earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mass communications in 2004, and played NCAA Division I baseball his senior season after transferring from the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where he participated in the NCAA Championships as a junior in 2003.
 
     Yarbrough's collegiate career began at John A. Logan Community College in Illinois, where Yarbrough set a single-season record with 18 home runs and earned preseason NJCAA All-America honors from Baseball America. Yarbrough led Logan CC to back-to-back conference titles and the 2002 NJCAA World Series.  He also earned his Associate of Arts degree in 2002.
 
     After graduation from Logan CC and prior to transferring to OIe Miss, he played for the Sanford Mariners in the New England Collegiate League, and the following summer, played for the Fayetteville Swamp Dogs in the Coastal Plains Collegiate League.  After graduation from McNeese State, Yarbrough played independent professional baseball for two seasons with the Fort Worth Cats, managed by former Cincinnati Reds player Wayne Terwilliger and operated by former Lost Angeles Dodger shortstop Maury Wills.  He also served as an intern in the public relations department of the Southwest Louisiana Swashbucklers of the National Indoor Football League (NIFL).
 
     Yarbrough earned All-Region selection three consecutive seasons in high school and was selected to the Kentucky high school All-Star game in 2000. He played for American Legion Post 31 Chief Paduke in Paducah in the summer of 2000, and led the team to a national runner-up finish in the American Legion World Series in Alton, Illinois.  In 1999, he traveled with the Roberto Clemente All-Stars of New York to play for a week against Puerto Rican All-Star competition and also attended the Team One Professional Showcase at the University of Notre Dame. As a sophomore in 1998, he was selected to play at the Walt Disney World Wild World of Sports Showcase.
 
 
Tyler Pittman
Assistant Coach
 
Matt Smith
Assistant Coach
     Matt Smith joins the Mid-Continent University athletics staff, serving a dual role as strength and conditioning coach for all six intercollegiate sports in which Mid-Continent competes, as well as assistant baseball coach with first-year head coach Shawn Yarbrough.  Smith will work especially with the defense and coach first base during games, while Tyler Pittman serves as pitching coach.
 
     The connection between Smith and Yarbrough goes back several seasons when Smith served as head baseball coach at Community Christian Academy (Ky.) from 2005-2008.  Smith brought Yarbrough, the owner and hitting instructor of Diamond Baseball Academy, to the CCA campus to instruct his baseball team in the science of hitting several times, and the two men forged a coaching relationship and a friendship.
 
     Smith comments, "When I left CCA, I prayed first that I would have opportunities to share the Gospel.  The Mid-Continent position is an answer to those prayers." Smith discovered that he and Yarbrough shared a similar coaching philosophy, "Faith first, then baseball," and his decision became more clear.
 
     Smith, a 1986 graduate of Bradley Central High School in Cleveland, Tennessee, and a 1992 graduate of Shorter College in Rome, Georgia, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology.  He played four years of college baseball, patrolling centerfield for Cleveland State Community College (Tenn.) in 1987, Chattanooga State Tech Community College (Tenn.) in 1989, and Shorter College in 1990 and 1991.  His combined batting average for the four seasons was a crisp .356.
 
     Smith helped Cleveland State CC and Chattanooga Tech CC to conference championships, and he earned All-Conference honors as a sophomore. As a junior at Shorter, Smith led his team to a second-place finish in conference, and as a senior, he was instrumental in leading Shorter to the conference title.
 
     He later served as head baseball coach at Christian Fellowship High School in Marshall County (Ky.) from 1998-2002, and was head baseball coach at CCA from 2005-2008. Smith also has been self-employed since 2002, refurbishing and repairing plastic shipping containers for the automotive industry.
 
     Smith, and his wife of 15 years, Michele, and their three children, Kyle, age 9, Isabela, age 6, and Gabriele, age 4, attend the Pathway Baptist Church in Calvert City, Kentucky.