Virginia Tech Fires Baseball Head Coach Pat Mason

Virginia Tech baseball Pat Mason
Virginia Tech baseball Head Coach Pat Mason has been fired. (Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech Athletics)

Virginia Tech announced on Sunday that it has fired Pat Mason, who has been the head coach since June 2013.

“I want to thank Coach Mason for his commitment and dedication to our baseball program during his tenure as both head coach and as an assistant coach at Virginia Tech,” said Director of Athletics Whit Babcock in a statement. “We appreciate the work that Patrick and his staff have done to help our student-athletes both academically and athletically.

“We are always cognizant of the many individuals impacted by leadership changes in any of our programs, especially our student-athletes,” Babcock said. “After careful consideration and an ongoing evaluation of the long-term direction of baseball at Virginia Tech, we have decided to make a change. While I know Coach Mason is disappointed, he has handled this situation like the consummate professional that he is. We wish him the best. We plan to make no further comments regarding our baseball program or coaching search until we announce our next head coach.”

In his four seasons at Virginia Tech, Mason’s Hokies were 90-126-1, and went just 37-82 in ACC games. Mason was originally hired prior to the 2010 season as an assistant under Pete Hughes, but took over the head coaching position in 2013 after Hughes took the head coaching job at Oklahoma.

“I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity to coach at Virginia Tech,” Mason said in a statement. “I appreciate the efforts that our players, coaches and support staff made to represent Tech in a first-class manner. The support of my wife and family has meant the world to me. We have many fond memories of our time in Blacksburg and we wish the Hokies the very best going forward.”

Virginia Tech has struggled mightily the last two seasons, going 19-36 in 2015 and 23-32 in 2016. Mason had one year remaining on his contract after this season. The Hokies will now begin a coaching search to fill his position, as Virginia Tech debuts a newly renovated English Field at Union Park next season.

7 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. How about the Roanoke College baseball coach? He’s been there five years and his older brother is a coach.

  2. I hate it when we have to cut a guy lose like this but that’s the nature of the job. When you don’t perform, you have to go. He just wasn’t going to turn it around. I hope we turn up a good one to revitalize the program. When I was a student way back in the late 60’s we were a very competitive team with several NCAA appearances.

  3. The writing was on the wall especially after the past two seasons. Firing a coach is never easy; however, sometimes it is justified and new blood is needed to turn the program around. Finishing near the bottom of the ACC is not good. Better days are ahead for our baseball program. Again, a good move by our AD.

  4. It’s a tough gig. You don’t have as much of a history as you do w the football program. The revamped stadium will definitely help but unfortunately w the recent down seasons, it would still be tough to recruit w Mason still there. So a new start makes total sense. It’s not really an indictment of Mason, although I suspect he was not as good of a recruiter as Hughes.

    1. Maybe not head coaching material? VT appears to have been his first head coaching job. No track record, none. I’ll let others follow up on this.

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