Paul Svagdis
Azusa Pacific head coach Paul Svagdis enters his sixth season at the helm of the storied Cougar baseball program after taking Azusa Pacific’s success to a national level with a 2007 campaign that could be described as nothing short of a dream season. It was the type of season no coach, player or fan can ever forget, and when the Cougars clinched the NAIA Region II title on its home field with a 9-5 win over Concordia, it sent them back to a place no Azusa Pacific team had been in 23 years – the NAIA World Series.
Svagdis was named the GSAC and NAIA Region II Coach of the Year for the first time in his 5-year tenure at Azusa Pacific after engineering one of the most remarkable turnarounds in college baseball, taking a 2006 squad that finished 24-25 and turning it into the runaway 2007 GSAC champion that finished 51-10 overall and 32-4 in conference play. He was instrumental in the development of 2007 co-GSAC Players of the Year Scott Hodsdon and Stephen Vogt, resulting in their selection in the 2007 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft as the highest-drafted pair of Azusa Pacific teammates since 1983.
Getting to the NAIA World Series is one thing. Getting back is a monumental task for any program that competes in the ultra-competitive Golden State Athletic Conference. Each of the past 5 seasons have crowned a different regular-season champion, and Svagdis’ 2008 squad faces the job without its graduated seniors, including the Vogt and Hodsdon’s combined 40 home runs, 170 RBIs and 115 runs scored.
In 2003, Svagdis inherited an Azusa Pacific team that returned 16 players from its 2002 squad that went 28-17 and won its first GSAC crown since 1995 with a 21-7 conference mark. In his first season at the helm, Svagdis led the Cougars to a 26-24 overall mark and a 17-11 finish in the GSAC, good for third place. Additionally, he guided the Cougars to their 23rd consecutive playoff appearance. He spent the next 3 seasons laying the groundwork for the 2007 campaign, keeping Azusa Pacific competitive within the tough GSAC landscape while building the program into a national title contender. Despite missing the postseason from 2004 through 2006, Azusa Pacific kept alive a 20-win season streak that now covers a 21-year stretch, and the Cougars remain the only GSAC program to finish .500 or better in conference play in every season of the GSAC’s 21-year history.
Svagdis came to Azusa Pacific after spending 6 seasons as the head baseball coach and an assistant football coach at Pomona-Pitzer, an NCAA Division III institution in Claremont, Calif., where he posted a 122-107 career mark.
At Pomona-Pitzer, Svagdis inherited a program that had fallen on hard times, but in a matter of 3 seasons, he brought the Sagehens to prominence and returned the program to the top of the SCIAC. After finishing a combined 21-53 in his first 2 seasons as a head coach, Svagdis led the Sagehens to 4 straight winning campaigns and 3 straight 20-win seasons. In 2001, he guided the Sagehens to a 24-12 mark and a 16-5 finish in the SCIAC, just 2 games behind conference champion and SCIAC power California Lutheran.
Then in 2002, Svagdis conducted Pomona-Pitzer to the finest season in school history as the Sagehens finished 36-7, including a perfect 18-0 record in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC), as well as the institution’s first SCIAC baseball crown since 1955. As a result, the Sagehens were the top seed at the 2002 NCAA Division III Western Regional Playoffs. For his efforts, Svagdis was named 2002 SCIAC Coach of the Year.
As a player, Svagdis was a 4-year starter in baseball and football at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., from which he graduated in 1993 with a bachelors’ degree in economics. He was an All-New England selection 3 years and was the team MVP twice. Svagdis was selected Tufts Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year as a 1993 senior.
Immediately after graduating, Svagdis spent 3 seasons as an assistant baseball and football coach at Tufts and earned his master’s degree in education in 1996 before taking the Pomona-Pitzer position. He is an active member of COIN (Coach of Influence), the American Football Coaches Association, and the American Baseball Coaches Association. While at Pomona-Pitzer, he was a member of the West Regional NCAA Advisory Committee and was the West Regional Chairman of the Division III All-American Committee.
Svagdis and his wife, Catherine, have a daughter Emma (8) and a son Dominic (5). In addition to his coaching duties, he also teaches in the university’s department of exercise and sport science.
