Tom Holliday, who has helped lead teams to 17 College World Series appearances and two national championships, spent one season as associate head coach and pitching coach at Auburn in 2015.
In addition to his duties as associate head coach and pitching coach, Holliday also serves as Auburn's recruiting coordinator.
It didn't take long for Holliday to show a major influence on the Auburn pitching staff. In his first year with the Tigers, Holliday guided Auburn's pitchers to their best shutout total since 1989 with eight and highest total of strikeouts (465) in five seasons. Cole Lipscomb posted an 8-2 record and a 2.53 ERA was named to the All-SEC team, while Trey Wingenter and Rocky McCord were both selected in the MLB Draft.
Lipscomb and McCord combined to throw 82.1 innings on the season in 2015 after throwing a mere 3.2 the season prior.
Holliday came to Auburn following eight seasons as associate head coach at North Carolina State, where he most recently helped lead the Wolfpack to the 2013 College World Series and groomed ace pitcher Carlos Rodon into the No. 3 overall MLB Draft pick in 2014.
While serving as NC State's pitching coach, Holliday coached five All-ACC pitchers and four All-Americans. He had 15 hurlers selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, including a first-rounder, second-rounder, a fifth-rounder, a sixth-rounder, two eighth-rounders and an 11th-rounder.
Holliday, who began his coaching career in 1976, has known nothing but success as a college coach. He owns a 281-150 record as a head coach and has a combined record of 1,698-691 in 38 years as an assistant and head coach in the college ranks. In all, Holliday has coached with 17 teams that participated in the College World Series in Omaha, including two that won the national championship.
Holliday began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Miami, in 1976. After one season with the Hurricanes, Holliday went to Arizona State University for the Sun Devils' run to the 1977 national championship. He has been with winning programs ever since. After one season at Arizona State, Holliday spent the next 26 years at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla., the first 19 as the Cowboys' pitching coach and recruiting coordinator. He was the Cowboys' head coach from 1997-2003.
In Holliday's 26 years in Stillwater, Oklahoma State made 11 College World Series appearances, including seven in a row from 1981-87. The Cowboys played in the CWS championship game in 1981, 1987 and 1990. He took Oklahoma State to Omaha as head coach in 1999, finishing the year with a 46-21 record and ranked No. 8 in the country. The Cowboys won 50 games or more eight times while Holliday was on the staff, including 61 victories in 1988, and averaged more than 47 wins per season. Holliday coached 10 first-team All-Americans and 27 total All-Americans at Stillwater, 92 all-conference performers, seven Freshman All-Americans, two U.S. Olympians and six U.S. National Team members, 52 academic all-conference honorees, and 155 players who went on to careers in professional baseball, including nine who were first-round draft picks.
Holliday worked with numerous Oklahoma State players who went on to major league careers, including Pete Incaviglia (Baseball America's Player of the Century), Robin Ventura (Baseball America's Player of the Decade for the 1980s), Jeromy Burnitz, Mickey Tettleton, Doug Dascenzo, Scott Williamson, Mike Henneman, Luke Scott, Scott Baker, Matt Smith, Jeff Salazar and Josh Fields.
Holliday was the pitching coach at the University of Texas from 2004-06. The Longhorns were NCAA runners-up in 2004, his first year in Austin, then won the national championship in 2005. Collegiate Baseball magazine named him its 2005 National College Pitching Coach of the Year. Each of Holliday's three Longhorn pitching staffs ranked among the nation's leaders statistically, and three of his pitchers at UT earned All-America honors. Seventeen members of Holliday's three Texas pitching staffs went on to play professional baseball, and three -- Sam LeCure, J.P. Howell, and 2005 American League Rookie of the Year Huston Street -- reached the big leagues.
A native of Uniontown, Pa., Holliday and his wife Kathy, have two sons, Josh and Matt. Josh is currently the head coach at Oklahoma State, and Matt is the starting left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals and a seven-time National League All-Star.