Baylor Baseball Rounds Out Staff With Brian Furlong
*Per Baylor Press Release;
WACO, Texas – Baylor baseball head coach Mitch Thompson announced Thursday the addition of director of player development Brian Furlong to his staff.
Furlong rounds out Thompson’s staff after spending the last four seasons as the pitching coach at Xavier.
“Brian is one of the brightest young minds in college baseball,” Thompson said. “He has outstanding experience, having been a junior college head coach and a pitching coach at several private Division I universities in the Midwest. We are blessed to add Brian and his family to our staff. Our program will benefit tremendously from his knowledge of the game.”
During his time at Xavier, Furlong helped improve the pitching staff’s ERA by nearly two runs against all opponents, and by over three runs in Big East play. In 2022, the Musketeers set a program record with 482 strikeouts, just one season after setting a program record with 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings.
“I am excited for the opportunity to join this staff and the Baylor Baseball family,” Furlong said. “Coach Thompson has put together a tremendous group of coaches and I’m excited to be a part of it.”
Prior to joining Xavier in July 2018, Furlong was the head coach at Heartland Community College in Illinois for two seasons in 2017 and 2018. While at the helm of the program, Furlong led the Hawks to an 85-26 record and advanced to the 2018 Region 24 Championship game after winning the MWAC Conference title. Furlong was named the MWAC Coach of the Year as the 2018 squad recorded the second-best grade point average in program history and finished the season ranked No. 3 in the country.
Following the 2018 campaign, Furlong saw 14 Heartland players move on to play at Division I schools, a program record. In total, 31 players continued to play after competing under Furlong at HCC, including 18 at D-I universities.
Prior to his stint at Heartland, Furlong spent three years at Creighton as the pitching coach, where he helped the Bluejays set a program record with a 3.15 ERA in 2016. CU led the Big East in team ERA in both 2015 and 2016, while Furlong also tutored five of the top seven ERA leaders in school history.
Before working at Creighton, he served as the director of baseball operations at Iowa for the 2013 season. Before that, Furlong worked as a managing partner of a Diamond Dreams Sports Academy in Iowa City.
As a pitcher, Furlong played for Iowa State in 2001, Creighton in 2003 and Iowa in 2004-05. He was recognized as a Big 12 Scholar Athlete and named to both the Missouri Valley and Big Ten academic all-conference teams during his playing career.
Furlong earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Iowa in 2007 and holds a master’s of education in coaching education and athlete development from Xavier.