Seth Kenny will return to the Austin Peay State University baseball coaching staff as an assistant coach and the program’s recruiting coordinator.
Kenny, who was an assistant at Austin Peay during the 2001 and 2002 seasons, joins the Govs after spending the past five seasons at Illinois State under head coach Jim Brownlee. While with the Redbirds, he coached six players that were drafted in Major League Baseball’s First-Year Player Draft, including current Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Jeremy Accardo.
“The opportunity to be a recruiting coordinator at a strong program was important to me,” said Kenny. “I believe there is a lot of young talent here and that’s exciting to me. I know we lost a number one, number two and our closer, but I believe we have a chance to be a solid group again. It will be fun working with this staff and helping them develop.”
“We’re really fortunate to get Seth back, a guy I have worked with before and helped him get his start in coaching,” said Govs head coach Gary McClure. “He did a good job here and had an opportunity to better himself and did that (at Illinois State). Seth picked up some new ideas from other people and now he brings that experience back to us. In addition, he gained more experience on the recruiting trail and recruited some quality guys at Illinois State. He’s hit the ground running on our recruiting for next season and I believe he’s going to do a great job.”
In his first season at ISU, Kenny’s pitching staff recorded the lowest walks per nine innings (3.12) in school history. The following season, his pitching staff was second in the Missouri Valley Conference in strikeouts with a school-record 438. In his previous stint at Austin Peay, Kenny was a coach on the 2001 Govs team that reached the OVC Championship game and saw Stephen Pew named to the all-tournament team. The next season he coached Mike Weel to a first-team All-OVC selection as the Govs again advanced to the OVC tournament where they went 1-2.
Kenny began his playing career at Eastern Michigan where he played four seasons (1995-98) before moving on to the Oakland A’s organization. At EMU, he is ranked 13th in career innings pitched (199.0) and 14th in complete games (nine). He also led the 1998 team with 77.0 innings pitched.
His professional career started in 1998 in the Arizona League, where he was 1-5 with a 3.00 ERA in 36 innings pitched. Kenny allowed eight walks while striking out 35 before being promoted to Southern Oregon that same season, a short-season Class-A club, where he made two appearances. He spent 1999 with the Modesto A’s of the California League, a Class-A affiliate, making 18 appearances and recording a 3.52 ERA in 38 innings before leaving to pursue coaching.
Kenny is married to the former Andrea Miller, a three-sport athlete at Austin Peay and athletics hall of fame member, and they have two children.
