Head Coach Tim Pettorini

Phone: (330) 263-2180
e-mail: tpettorini@wooster.edu

The driving force behind a program that is regarded as one of the finest in NCAA Division III is Tim Pettorini, The College of Wooster’s veteran head baseball coach.

After 27 years at the helm, Pettorini is on the verge of becoming just the ninth coach in Div. III history to win 900 games, entering 2009 with an overall record of 877-321-6 (.731). He has guided Wooster to a league-high 11 North Coast Athletic Conference championships (1985, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006), while also taking the Fighting Scots to the NCAA Mideast Regional Tournament on a regular basis (18 times). Wooster has won the regional championship on four occasions (1989, 1994, 1997, 2005), thus gaining berths in the eight-team Div. III Baseball Championship, where its top finishes were runner-up in 1997 and third-place in 2005.

Pettorini, among the top-10 Div. III coaches all-time in winning percentage, has been recognized by his peers a number of times. He’s been selected the conference’s Coach of the Year seven seasons (1987, 1988, 1990, 1995, 2002, 2004, 2006) and was the American Baseball Coaches Association NCAA Div. III Mideast Region Coach of the Year four times (1989, 1994, 1997, 2005).

Some of Pettorini’s most notable campaigns have come in recent years, as the Scots have won nearly 80 percent of their games over the past 13 years, going 487-125-1 (.795). During 2006 and 2007, Wooster ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in the NCAA Div. III coaches’ poll every week of the regular season, while producing the program’s first 40-win season since 1998 with a 42-7 record in 2007 and becoming the first NCAC team to win a third consecutive conference title in 2006 (38-9). In 2005, the Scots finished third at the national tourney after becoming the first NCAC team to win the conference and regional crowns during the same season, while in 2004, Wooster hosted an NCAA regional tournament at Art Murray Field after sweeping then-No. 5 ranked Denison University for another league championship.

In 2002, one of the Scots’ most talented squads put together a 34-3 regular season, highlighted by a 9-7 victory over Ohio State University – the program’s second of three-straight wins over Div. I teams (University of Akron 8-4 in 2001, Kent State University 5-4 in 2003) – and was ranked No. 1 for four-straight weeks. The 1997 and 1998 Wooster teams posted back-to-back 40-win seasons, including a school-record 46 in 1997, when the Scots advanced all the way to the national championship game before falling to the University of Southern Maine.

Prior to accepting the Wooster position in 1982, Pettorini had taught and coached baseball at Fremont Ross High School. He turned the Little Giant program around, leading the team to a record of 64-20 (.762) between 1977-81.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Pettorini holds both a bachelor’s degree (1973) and a master’s degree (1980) from Bowling Green State University. As an undergraduate, he played baseball for the Falcons and was a four-year starter in the outfield. In fact, Pettorini was an all-Mid-American Conference selection and was drafted by the San Diego Padres at the end of his senior year.

But, Pettorini bypassed a chance to play professional baseball for the second time in order to pursue his true love – a career in coaching. He previously had been drafted four years earlier by the Philadelphia Phillies after earning all-state honors at Columbus Eastmoor High School.

Pettorini and his wife, Rhoda, live in Wooster and have two sons – Tim (36) and Terry (28), who both inherited their father’s passion for baseball. Tim was a four-year letterwinner at Wooster from 1992-95, playing an integral role on the Scots’ 1994 team, which reached the Div. III Baseball Championship, while Terry was an infielder and three-year letterwinner at Ohio State from 2001-03.