Terry McKaig, long-time head coach of the Thunderbird baseball team, will become the first ever director of baseball on June 1.
According to McKaig, his new role, which begins after the Thunderbirds finish their season, will involve overseeing the operations of UBC’s baseball program from a managerial role, working on funding, overseeing coaching, developing facilities and growing sponsorships.
“We need to do bigger and better things for the program, which means getting more money for scholarships, for coaching and for facilities, so that’s going to be my job,” he said.
McKaig said his motivation to become director of baseball stems largely from the various initiatives and projects underway for the program. These include the construction of an indoor baseball training facility as well as fundraising for the construction of a new stadium.
“What I need to do is go into higher management level or administration level to operate these facilities and make revenue to become this hybrid-funding team that we are,” said McKaig.
Last year's sports review gave the baseball team hybrid status, meaning they would be responsible for pursuing their own funding.
McKaig is looking forward to assuming his new position. Currently, he has limited time to invest in fundraising that would improve the baseball program.
In preparation for assuming his new role, McKaig said one of the most immediate orders of business is to select a new head coach as his replacement, a process set to begin the second week of May.
“We’re going to do a national search starting next week, so we’ll go through a formal application process. The university will post that so that anybody can apply that wants to,” said McKaig.
There will be an interview process and the university will hopefully select a new head coach in early June.
McKaig started coaching baseball at UBC 1997, the same year that he graduated from UBC Kinesiology. McKaig was a principal player in reviving the varsity baseball team that had been inactive or downsized for decades.
Over his 18-year coaching career, McKaig has played an instrumental role in contributing to the success of the baseball team and its players. The team saw its most impressive performance in 2006, when they entered the NAIA World Series and placed fourth. Over McKaig’s career, a total of 18 players from UBC have been drafted into Major League Baseball.
McKaig is a three-time recipient of the Coach of the Year Award for NAIA West, most recently in 2014.