Benjamin Powell/The Dominion Post WVU baseball coach Steve Sabins enters the College World Series with an 89-31 record.

OMAHA, Neb. – It took all of two years as a head coach for Steve Sabins to reach a major coaching milestone Friday.

His moment of glory was brief.

“I’d stay here and celebrate, but I’ve got a game to get to,” the WVU head baseball coach said, as he rushed down a hallway inside Charles Schwab Field to get ready for the Mountaineers’ matchup against Troy.

In any manner, Sabins, who was first hired as a WVU assistant coach in 2015, was named the Coach of the Year by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association after leading the Mountaineers to their first-ever appearance in the College World Series after a program-record 45-win season.

“Obviously, I’m just incredibly humbled to be here,” Sabins said during his press conference. “I’m really thankful for the opportunity. There are so many deserving people and the ball kind of has to fall your way. It certainly did in this scenario for this award.”

Sabins became the first WVU head coach to win a national coach of the year honor since men’s soccer coach Dan Stratford in 2023. The achievement is worth $50,000 to Sabins, according to his list of contract incentives.

The story of Sabins’ transition to the Mountaineers’ head coach in 2025 is unlike any other coaching change undertaken by WVU athletic director Wren Baker, in that the process was essentially handled in just one day.

“It was certainly the fastest coaching search,” joked Baker, who introduced Sabins at the press conference.

As the story goes, Cincinnati had offered Sabins its head coaching opportunity in 2023, which prompted a meeting between Baker and then WVU head coach Randy Mazey.

“Actually, before all of this happened, I had been in talks for an extension with Randy,” Baker said. “The reality of it was, though, is he was thinking about just doing it for only a year, or two, more.”

The Cincinnati offer to Sabins suddenly put a rush mode on everyone’s plans. Mazey didn’t want to lose Sabins, so his discussions with Baker were about creating a head-coach-in-waiting situation that would allow Mazey to coach the 2024 season and Sabins would take over the program in 2025.

“Normally, I’m not always for a coach-in-waiting type situation,” Baker said. “I feel like it already puts a lot of pressure on what can already be an emotional and sometimes volatile situation.”

Baker’s conversation with Mazey eventually turned into another with Sabins.

“It had just become apparent to me that those two guys were committed to making this work,” Baker said. “Those two guys had built the success of the program together and that this was the right move. I give both of those guys a ton of credit. Both of them did a lot of sacrificing for the sake of the program.”

Baker, who has also undertaken three coaching searches for the men’s basketball team and one each for football and women’s basketball programs since taking over as WVU’s athletic director, took the baseball recommendation to the WVU Board of Governors and it was approved and that was the quick end to that coaching search.

“I think this one certainly turned out to be a blessing,” Baker admits. “On the heels of so many of the other things I had to deal with early in my tenure – I was a little frustrated to be dealing with another one at the time – but in hindsight, it’s worked out beautifully and it worked out the way it was supposed to.”

In his two years as WVU’s head coach, the Mountaineers have won a Big 12 regular-season title and have advanced to two consecutive super regionals. Sabins, a native of Austin, Texas, has won 74.2% of his games.

“I’m thankful just to be on the ballot,” Sabins said. “I’m thankful for the group of people for voting and believing that our program could have a coach who had representation like this.”