Skip Bailey, head coach of the Monroe Community College baseball team for the past 11 seasons and part of the program since 1975, has stepped down from the coaching ranks. Bailey will focus on his role as the college’s associate athletic director.
Longtime assistant Mike Kelly has been named Bailey’s successor and becomes the college’s third head baseball coach. Kelly, a former MCC Tribune himself, has been on the coaching staff since 1999.
“Coach Bailey’s record here at MCC has been outstanding,” said Monroe Athletic Director Murph Shapiro. “He’s taken our program to the next level. We’re very proud of the fact that he did it with class and by understanding of the needs of our program and our student-athletes.”
Bailey became head coach in 1997, taking over for American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer H. David Chamberlain. Bailey amassed an overall record of 451-204 as head coach. His teams won six NJCAA Region III titles and he was named Regional Coach of the Year five times. The 2006 team recorded a school-record 40 victories and the 2007 squad advanced to the NJCAA World Series for the first time since 1989.
Bailey was captain of the first MCC Tribunes team to go to the NJCAA World Series in 1976. He later transferred to the University of Colorado, where he was an All-Big Eight performer both on the baseball field and in the classroom. Bailey was inducted into the MCC Sports Hall of Fame in 1991.
President of the Western New York Athletic Conference, Bailey has an outstanding reputation for the camps and clinics he manages throughout the year. He has served on national committees for the ABCA, and in 1990 he was an assistant coach for the East team at the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival.
Kelly, 29, is a graduate of Aquinas Institute, MCC, and SUNY Brockport. He has worked with pitchers and catchers during his time with the Tribunes and has also served as the team’s third-base coach the past two seasons. He is the intramural director at MCC and has been a head coach in the New York Collegiate Baseball League for three years. He resides in Webster with his wife, Renee, and their two children, Mitchell and Madalyn.
“Mike’s a dedicated young coach who played in our program,” Shapiro said. “He’ll continue to have outstanding teams and will keep us on top of the college baseball scene.”
Tom Garigen
Athletics
07/18/2007 |