University of San Francisco Athletics

SAN FRANCISCO — After just one season away, former USF pitching coach Greg Moore has re-joined the Dons' baseball family.

USF head coach Nino Giarratano announced today that Moore joins his staff as the new Associate Head Coach. Moore signed a multi-year deal that will keep him on the Hilltop for years to come.  

"We are extremely excited for the USF program to get such a great coach, recruiter and friend of the USF family back," Giarratano said. "I'm so happy for the players, alumni and the coaching staff that Greg will be back to help lead the program through a number of new initiatives in player development that will change the direction of our program."

Moore spent eight seasons as an assistant for the Dons before leaving during the summer of 2009 season to become the pitching coach at the University of Washington. During his year of overseeing academics in Seattle, the baseball team turned in the highest grade point average improvement of any Husky team during the 2009 fall semester. Moore also coached junior reliever Jacob Clem to an honorable mention All-Pac-10 selection.

"This is home," Moore said. "I'm back to be part of a program that I think is different from any other in the entire country. And successful — since 2005, USF has won 191 games." Moore said.

"We are different here at USF in the way we recruit, go about day-to-day business, how we interact with and attack the academic side and in the way that we communicate with people in the community. It's a special place because it breaks some of the norms in an attempt to do things better."

Moore originally joined the staff at USF in 2002 as a volunteer assistant coach. After that season, he was promoted to pitching coach and recruiting coordinator. He was also in charge of overseeing the team's academic progress and helped lead the Dons to a 3.19 grade point average, an all-time high, in the spring of 2008.

Perhaps the most profound impact Moore has accomplished in his time at USF is his ability to develop talent on the pitching mound. Pitchers that come to the Hilltop as undrafted high school players, leave as highly decorated players with bright futures in professional baseball.

"Greg is one of the finest, young, energetic pitching coaches to emerge at the Division I coaching level in quite some time," Giarratano said. "Greg's individuality, tireless work ethics and unbelievable temperament make him one of the finest pitching coaches not only in the West Coast Conference, but in Division I baseball."

Moore has enjoyed noted success especially with left-handed pitchers. Former USF players Derek Tate, Scott Cousins, Aaron Poreda and Matt Lujan all came to the Dons as undrafted players out of high school with them going on to become a Freshman All-American (Lujan, 2008), West Coast Conference Co-Player of the year (Cousins, 2006), first-round draft pick (Poreda, 2006) and 34^th round pick (Tate, 2004). Poreda, who was picked by the White Sox with the 25th selection in the draft, was the highest pick in program history.

Player development with pitchers is by no means limited to left-handers, with right-handers Patrick McGuigan going from undrafted to 2006 WCC Pitcher of the Year and Nick Pereira going from undrafted to a 10^th round pick in 2005.

"I challenge anyone to show more measurable player development over the last five years," Giarratano said. "Our way is a little different — it starts by recruiting the right people. It works and happens to be a whole lot of fun. It's not about the draft or honors — it's about the development of the player, the person and the program."

In 2005, the USF pitching staff posted the finest season in school history, leading the West Coast Conference with a 2.86 ERA. That Dons' staff held opponents to a .234 batting average, also tops in the WCC.

In 2004, the Dons set a school record for strikeout-to-walk ratio and tied a record with the most strikeouts in a single season with 389. The 2005 (2.86) and 2006 (3.77) Dons tallied the best team ERAs in the modern era.

As a player, Moore began his career as a pitcher at Long Beach (Calif.) Community College before transferring to USF. A right-handed pitcher and catcher, he won the team's most inspirational player award in back-to-back years and the award is now named after him. He was also named to the WCC All-Academic team in 2001.