Legendary West Virginia State University (WVSU) baseball coach Cal Bailey has announced that the 2014 season will be his last at the helm of the Yellow Jackets.
Bailey finished the 2013 season with more than 1,000 career victories, one of only seven coaches in NCAA Division II history to win that many games.
Overall, heading into his final season, Bailey will carry a career record of 1,029 wins and only 466 losses. His career record in West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) play is 619-154 and under his leadership the Yellow Jackets have won 17 conference championships.
A native of Newton, W.Va., and a graduate of Spencer High School, Bailey first came to Institute as a baseball player. He was named to the All-WVIAC baseball team in 1966, and signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates to play professionally at the conclusion of that season.
After playing professional baseball through the 1971 season, Bailey returned to work at WVSU in the school’s admissions office. He also resumed his classwork earning his bachelor’s degree from WVSU in 1972 before taking classes from the W.Va. College of Graduate Studies and earning a master’s degree in 1974.
In 1978 Bailey was named the head coach of the Yellow Jackets and established WVSU as one of the premier baseball programs in the WVIAC.
Bailey has been named WVIAC Coach of the Year on eight occasions and was selected the West Virginia College Coach of the Year in 1982. In 1999 and 2005 he was voted the North Atlantic Region Coach of the Year.
He guided the Yellow Jackets to the NCAA Division II North Atlantic Regional Championship and a trip to the NCAA Division II World Series in 1999 where they finished third in the World Series and also garnered a third place finish in the final NCAA Division II Baseball Poll. In 2005 Bailey’s squad captured its second North Atlantic Regional title and advanced to the NCAA Division II World Series in Montgomery, Ala. The Jackets finished fifth there and also in the final national coaches’ poll.
In addition, 39 of Bailey’s former Yellow Jacket players went on to play baseball professionally, including a handful that made it to the Major Leagues.
Bailey is married to the former Ruth Fisher, herself a 1967 WVSU graduate and former cheerleader. They reside in Cross Lanes and are the proud parents of two children, Danny and Janna, and have four grandchildren.
Away from the baseball diamond, Bailey is an avid hunter and farmer. In 2002, Bailey was named Kanawha County Farmer of the Year.
