Gernon adds two more assistants

By Zeke Trezevant
Sports Editor

Billy Gernon, Western Michigan University’s head baseball coach, has announced the hiring of Blaine McFerrin and Brent Alwine as assistant coaches.

Both McFerrin and Alwine are former players and assistant coaches under Gernon. McFerrin will become the Broncos’ pitching coach and Alwine will become the recruiting coordinator and work with players in the infield.

After his playing days were over at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, McFerrin began coaching as an assistant for his Alma mater from 2001 to 2003. He then moved on to Division III Earlham College for the 2004 season, after which, he returned to IPFW in 2005.

Alwine played under Gernon at IPFW from 2003 to 2006. He then became an assistant coach for the Mastodons during the 2007 and 2008 seasons.

McFerrin was an assistant at Georgia State University for four seasons. He helped the Panthers to back-to-back conference championship appearances and the school’s first ever conference title in 2009.

While  at GSU, McFerrin had two pitchers go pro, including the highest draft pick in school history, David Buchanan, who was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies.

McFerrin spent the 2006 season at the University of Michigan, who won the Big Ten regular season championship and a Big Ten tournament title.

Alwine spent the past two seasons at Creighton University where he worked with hitters and outfielders. Creighton had winning seasons during both of Alwine’s seasons. He also worked with a total of four MLB signees.

Before coaching at  Omaha, he coached for two years at IPFW. After being a four year starter in college, Alwine finished his playing career at IPFW with a .311 career batting average and a .951 fielding percentage.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Jul 19 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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