#17 Danny Hall

Four-time ACC Coach of the Year, Danny Hall is in his 37th season as a head coach and his 31st year as the Georgia Tech skipper. The all-time winningest coach at Georgia Tech, Hall has led Tech to the NCAA Tournament 23 times and guided the Yellow Jackets to the College World Series three times. The Jackets have also claimed five ACC tournament titles and won the ACC regular season or division seven times — including two of the last four. Each of Hall’s Tech teams have been powered by a potent offense, leading or finishing second in the ACC in batting or run production in 18 of his 30 years as the Yellow Jackets’ head coach — most recently finishing second in the ACC with a gaudy .323 average in 2023. Since Hall’s arrival in 1994, a staggering 142 Yellow Jackets have been selected in the Major League Baseball Draft a total of 159 times. Overall, no program in the state of Georgia has produced more MLB Draft picks or Big Leaguers since 1965.

His 40-year coaching career also includes stops as the head coach at Kent State as well as an assistant coach at Michigan and a graduate assistant coach at Miami (Ohio). He is married to the former Kara Zufall and has three sons, Danny III, Carter and Colin.

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Danny Hall is a Hall of Fame winner.

Hall’s tenure at Georgia Tech has been his most successful, as he is the all-time winningest baseball coach in program history with 1,170 victories on The Flats, making him the all-time winningest Division I coach in the state of Georgia. He was inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame in 2023.

Hall has led Tech to the NCAA Tournament on 23 occasions and guided the Yellow Jackets to the NCAA College World Series in 1994, 2002 and 2006 — the program’s only three berths.

Hall became Georgia Tech’s winningest coach in 2005 with his 505th win (surpassing Jim Morris), and his Tech teams have posted an overall record of 1,170-632-1 in his 30 years at the helm of the Yellow Jackets’ program. His 36-year head coaching record, which includes six seasons at Kent State, stands at 1,378-749-1, making him the all-time winningest active coach in the NCAA. He needs just 22 wins to reach the 1,400-win milestone for his illustrious career.

Over his 30 years in the dugout at Tech, Hall’s Yellow Jackets have won more than 65 percent of their games overall and nearly 60 percent of their Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season games.

Hall’s Accomplishments at Tech

• Won a school-record 1,170 games
• Has coached in 1,803 games
• Led Tech to its only three College World Series appearances (1994, 2002, 2006)
• 23 NCAA Regional appearances in 30 years
• Six NCAA Super Regional appearances (1994, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006)
• Seven ACC regular season/divisional* championships (1997, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2019, 2021)
• Five ACC Tournament championships (2000, 2003, 2005, 2012, 2014)
• Owns a 5-2 record in the ACC Tournament championship game
• 143 players drafted 159 times, including 15 first-round picks
• 119 all-America selections by 45 different players
• 141 all-ACC selections
• 19 academic all-American honors and 14 additional academic all-district selections
• 28 freshman all-America honors
• 200+ student-athletes named to the ACC academic honor roll
• No. 1 national rankings in 1994, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2006
• No. 1 national ranked recruiting classes in 1999 and 2002
• School-record 52 wins in 2002
• Tech has scored 13,544 runs in 30 seasons — averaging 8.08 runs per game
• Set Georgia Tech team record for batting in 2000 (.342) and again in 2001 (.347)
• Led or finished second in the ACC in batting or run production 18 times

The 2024 season will be his 31st on The Flats and his 37th overall as a collegiate head coach. In 2021, he became the 20th head coach all-time in NCAA Division I to reach the 1,300-win milestone and in 2022, he became the winningest active coach in college baseball. In 2024, he will look to become the 11th head coach all-time to reach the 1,400-win milestone, needing just 22 wins entering the season.

During a collegiate coaching career that spans 40 years (as a graduate assistant, an assistant and a head coach), Hall has been part of 1,815 victories and seven trips to the College World Series.

Each of Hall’s Tech teams have been powered by a potent offense, leading or finishing second in the ACC in batting or run production in 18 of his 30 years as the Yellow Jackets’ head coach; most recently finishing second in the ACC in run production and hitting in 2023.

Hall’s players have earned 141 all-ACC honors in his 30 years, while 45 different players have garnered a total of 119 all-America honors. He has coached two National Players of the Year, two National Freshmen of the Year, two ACC Players of the Year, one ACC Pitcher of the Year, one ACC Defensive Player of the Year and three ACC Rookies of the Year.

In addition to the three College World Series appearances and 23 NCAA berths under Hall, the Yellow Jackets have claimed five ACC tournament titles (2000, 2003, 2005, 2012, 2014) and won the ACC regular season or division six times (1997, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2019, 2021).* (*The ACC stopped declaring regular season champions in 2006 and moved to divisional champions)

Since Hall’s arrival in 1994, a staggering 143 Yellow Jackets have been selected in the Major League Baseball Draft a total of 159 times — that includes a school-record 10 draft picks in 2004, 2007 and 2010, and a record five top-10 round picks in 2013. Fifteen of his student-athletes have been selected in either the first or supplemental round, while 70 have been taken in the first 10 rounds. A total of 64 players have been drafted out of high school but have chosen instead to play for Hall at Georgia Tech.

Hall’s no-nonsense, professional approach has given his players the fundamentals they need to be successful after leaving Georgia Tech. That is indicated in the number of his former players that have excelled on the MLB level, headlined by Charlie Blackmon of the Colorado Rockies, Derek Dietrich of the Houston Texans, Buck Farmer of the Detroit Tigers, Blake Wood of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Sam Clay of the Washington Nationals and former MLB stars Mark Teixeira, Nomar Garciaparra, Jason Varitek, Jay Payton and Matt Wieters.

The success of Hall’s players in professional baseball is molded by their accomplishments at Tech, as his Yellow Jacket teams have advanced to 23 NCAA Regionals in 29 seasons. Georgia Tech has posted 58 NCAA tournament victories since his arrival, winning six NCAA Regional titles and a pair of NCAA Super Regional crowns in both 2002 and 2006.

Just as Hall stresses the importance of on-field performance, his student-athletes have been equally successful in the classroom. More than 200 of his student-athletes have been named to the ACC honor roll (with a 3.0 or higher grade point average) and 11 have earned academic all-America honors on 17 occasions. His emphasis on the importance of scholastic success has rubbed off on his players, influencing many of those who left early to play professional baseball to return to Georgia Tech and complete their degree, including Mark Teixeira and Matt Wieters.

Hall has worked tirelessly to keep his former Yellow Jackets connected to the program. Through annual events like golf outings or offseason training sessions, Tech baseball alums can always be seen on The Flats.

Hall and Teixeira helped spearhead a major renovation to Russ Chandler Stadium in 2014-15, with Phase II renovations completed in the spring of 2021.

The Mark Teixeira Locker Room was part of a multi-million dollar overhaul to the Yellow Jackets’ team facility, which also included a state-of-the-art weight room, academic center and new athletic training facilities.

In his first year at Georgia Tech, Hall guided an extremely talented and veteran unit with four all-Americans and three first-round draft choices to the brink of a national championship, Georgia Tech’s first-ever appearance in the College World Series, and a 50-17 record. Hall was recognized by his American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) peers as Coach of the Year in the Atlantic Region, and may have won the national honor if not for the unranked-to-national title season put together by Oklahoma’s Larry Cochell. Three Yellow Jackets earned consensus first-team all-America recognition and those three players finished in the top three in the conference batting stats, a first in ACC history.

Hall guided Tech back to the NCAA Regionals in 1995 and 1996 with teams dominated by freshmen and sophomores. His 1997 squad captured its first ACC regular season title in just his fourth year on The Flats and played in the NCAA Mideast Regional. In addition to earning his first ACC Coach of the Year accolade in 1997, the Yellow Jackets’ skipper was named the National Coach of the Year by Sporting News, the first such honor for any Tech baseball coach.

After the Yellow Jackets failed to earn an NCAA Regional bid in 1999 for the first time since his arrival at Tech, Hall guided the Jackets to one of their most successful seasons in 2000 – capturing both the ACC regular season and tournament championships in addition to the NCAA Atlanta Regional title. The team concluded the year with a 50-16 record, and Hall was tabbed the ACC’s Coach of the Year for the second time.

Following another 40-win season in 2001, the sixth since Hall took over the reins in 1994, the Jackets’ skipper guided Tech to just its second College World Series appearance in 2002 by turning in one of the best coaching jobs of his career, leading a Tech team that included 17 freshmen and only three seniors back to Omaha. The Yellow Jackets swept through the NCAA Atlanta Regional and the NCAA Atlanta Super Regional with a perfect 5-0 record before finishing fifth at the College World Series. They concluded the 2002 campaign with 52 victories, establishing a school record for wins in a season.

Hall led Georgia Tech to its sixth ACC championship, and second in four years under his direction, with an improbable run to the title in 2003. An early-round loss, combined with weather issues, forced Tech to play a triple-header on the final day of competition, with Hall guiding the Yellow Jackets to a 10-6 win over North Carolina, a 10-7 win over Florida State and a 6-5, 10-inning victory over NC State to claim the title in the first triple-header sweep in league history.

In 2004, the Yellow Jackets captured their third ACC regular season title under Hall while the team made its fifth-straight NCAA appearance and 10th since Hall’s arrival on The Flats. Tech hosted an NCAA Regional for the fourth time in five years and advanced to an NCAA Super Regional for the third time since 2000. From 2004-05, Hall directed Tech to an ACC-record 25-straight conference wins, and the Yellow Jacket skipper was awarded with his third ACC Coach of the Year award honor after guiding Tech to both the 2005 ACC regular season and tournament titles.

Georgia Tech, which earned a top-eight national seed in the NCAA Tournament for the fourth-consecutive year, made its third-straight NCAA Super Regional appearance the following season in 2006 and advanced to its third College World Series since Hall’s arrival. Hosting an NCAA Regional for the fifth-straight year, Tech swept through the regional and then the super regional with a perfect 5-0 record before ending the 2006 season in Omaha with a 50-10 overall record.

With a squad that was among the youngest in the nation in 2011, Tech tied a school record with 22 ACC wins and claimed the ACC regular season title. The following year, 2012, may go down as one of Hall’s best coaching jobs on The Flats. A team that was battered with injuries, especially in the bullpen, snuck into the ACC Tournament on the final day of the regular season and got hot at just the right time. Tech rolled through Greensboro an undefeated 4-0, becoming the first No. 8 seed in conference history to win the title and the first to defeat a No. 1 seed (Florida State) in tournament play. The Jackets hit .329 overall as a team and outscored the opposition 35-15.

Tech’s 8-5 win over Miami in the 2012 ACC title game was Hall’s fourth win in five ACC championship game appearances.

The Jackets bashed their way out of the gate in 2013, opening the season 14-2 with staggering offensive numbers. Tech set a school record by scoring double-digit runs in nine-straight games and 14 of the first 21. Paced with home run power from eventual all-Americans Daniel Palka and Zane Evans, Tech finished the season leading the ACC with 58 home runs and was second in both batting average (.304) and slugging percentage.

The Jackets won series over No. 2 North Carolina and No. 5 Virginia during the regular season, beat No. 7 Florida State in the ACC Tournament and knocked off No. 2 Vanderbilt, 5-0, during the NCAA Nashville Regional – the 18th NCAA trip in Hall’s 20 seasons at Tech.

Tech was one of the nation’s youngest teams again in 2014, starting as many as six true freshmen position players. Yet Hall was able to mold the group into champions as the Yellow Jackets, the ACC’s ninth seed, made a remarkable run through Greensboro and captured the program’s ninth ACC Tournament title.

The team did its damage with pitching and defense, shaving nearly a full run off its ERA from 2013 and setting the school record for fielding percentage (.974) while leading the nation in double plays (77).

Tech reached the NCAA Regional for the 19th time under Hall in 2014, following a regular season that included series wins over then No. 1 Florida State, No. 22 Miami, No. 13 North Carolina, Georgia, Duke and Virginia Tech.

In 2015, freshman Kel Johnson became the 20th player under Coach Hall to earn freshman all-America honors as the Yellow Jackets finished the season at 32-23 overall, including a stellar record of 21-8 at home on the year. Four Jackets in Matt Gonzalez, A.J. Murray, Brandon Gold and Johnson all earned all-ACC honors, as Tech saw its season cut short in the ACC Championship Tournament for the first time since 2007, ending a streak of seven-straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

The Yellow Jackets got back on track in a huge way in 2016, as Coach Hall’s squad swarmed out of the gates with 12-straight wins to start the season off at 12-0. Despite hitting a rough patch midseason, which was caused by a slew of injuries to the pitching rotation, the Yellow Jackets made their 31st overall NCAA Regional appearance, 20th under Coach Hall, and finished the injury plagued season at 38-25 overall.

The only school from the state of Georgia to advance to the NCAA postseason in 2016, Tech went 2-2 in the regional to finish as the runner-up.

Coach Hall’s squad registered a non-conference midseason sweep of the eventual 2016 NCAA National Champions in Coastal Carolina from April 29 thru May 1, taking three-straight from the Chanticleers by scores of 9-1, 9-8 and 4-2 in a shortened-contest. On top of the sweep over the eventual national champions, the Jackets also took two-of-three games on the road at both No. 3 North Carolina and No. 23 Clemson in ACC play and used a three-run 10th inning to upend Georgia 6-3 in the Yellow Jackets’ final game at Turner Field.

Freshmen Joey Bart and Tristin English were both named to the 2016 Louisville Slugger freshman all-American team and the ACC all-freshman team, while English was also named to the D1Baseball freshman all-American second team. Pitcher Matthew Gorst earned a spot on the NCBWA all-American second team, while a number of Yellow Jackets earned all-ACC honors in English (first team), Kel Johnson (first team), Matt Gonzalez (first team), Brandon Gold (second team), Gorst (second team), and Connor Justus (third team). Gorst, Gonzalez and Gold were all also named to the 2016 ABCA/Rawlings Atlantic all-region team, the first Jackets to receive all-region honors since 2013. A total of five Yellow Jackets – Justus, Gonzalez, Gold, Gorst and Arden Pabst where selected in the 2016 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft in June, the most picks by the Yellow Jackets in a single season since seven were chosen in 2013. One of only 32 NCAA Division I baseball programs to earn the 2015-16 American Baseball Coaches Association Team Academic Excellence Award, Tech had four players in Ben Parr, Johnson, Trevor Craport and Brandt Stallings named to the 2016 all-ACC academic team.

In 2017, the Jackets were hindered by injuries all season long, as Tech had a total of 11 student-athletes miss significant time (six games or more) due to an injury throughout the year. In what proved to be a grueling schedule, the Yellow Jackets played a total of 16 games (30 percent) of its schedule against top-20 teams in No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 9 North Carolina, No. 7/16 Auburn, No. 5 Clemson, No. 2 Louisville, No. 8 Virginia and No. 12 Wake Forest (rankings at time of competition), scoring one win apiece versus Oklahoma, North Carolina, Auburn, Clemson and Virginia.

Despite the uncharacteristic Georgia Tech baseball season, the Jackets had one player named to all four all-ACC teams in 2017. Junior second baseman Wade Bailey was named to the all-ACC first team, while sophomore catcher Joey Bart earned a spot on the second team. Junior third baseman Trevor Craport was named to the third team, while freshman shortstop Austin Wilhite was named to the all-ACC freshman team. Both Bailey and Bart earned ABCA/Rawlings all-region accolades, while Bailey was also named to the all-America second team by Collegiate Baseball. Wilhite was named to both the Collegiate Baseball freshmen all-America first team and an NCBWA freshman all-American.

2019 marked the return of a sleeping giant as the Yellow Jackets blasted their way back onto the national scene, winning 43 games, a program-record 10-straight series and nine-straight Atlantic Coast Conference series, and capped it by being named the No. 3 National Seed and the host of the 2019 NCAA Atlanta Regional. Georgia Tech were led by a veteran group that included consensus all-Americans Tristin English, Kyle McCann and Connor Thomas, as well as shortstop of the year finalist Luke Waddell and all-ACC selections Baron Radcliff, Michael Guldberg and Xzavion Curry. Once again leading the ACC in hitting (.297) and finishing second in run production (.464), the Jackets showed intense GriT – as it soon became their season moniker – and lost only one ACC series, despite losing two of their weekend starting pitchers to season-ending injuries. The blue-collar season and effort earned head coach Hall his fourth ACC Coach of the Year honor – tied for third-most selections in conference history.

In 2021, the Jackets navigated the landscape of a 36-game ACC schedule with 50 games overall due to changes in conference scheduling due to the Covid-19 pandemic that cut the 2020 season short after just 16 games. Despite the challenges, Georgia Tech worked to a whopping 21 conference wins, including series wins over then-No. 1 Louisville, then-No. 8 and eventual College World Series qualifier NC State, then-No. 12 Virginia Tech and then-No. 20 Georgia. Tech won the Coastal Division for the second-straight season and made its 33rd NCAA Tournament appearance at Vanderbilt.

Hall guided the Jackets to one of its most prolific offensive seasons in 2022, producing a whopping eight MLB Draft selections, including first-rounder Kevin Parada. Georgia Tech fought to 36 wins on the season, including wins over then-No. 5 Georgia, then-No. 13 Florida State, then-No. 3 Miami and then-No. 7 Louisville before making its 34th NCAA Tournament appearance at Tennessee.

In 2023, Georgia Tech once again ranked among the tops in the ACC in batting (second – .323) and run production (third – 8.28), fighting for 30 wins on the season. Tech had five Yellow Jackets selected all-ACC and three selected in the MLB Draft — Kristian Campbell, Jake DeLeo and Jackson Finley. Drew Compton would also sign an undrafted free agent contract to become the fourth ProJacket from the 2023 squad.

The Jackets have made 31 NCAA Regional appearances in the last 40 years, the fourth-most by any school during that same span (Florida State – 36, Miami – 35, LSU – 35).

From a pair of conference titles and NCAA Regional appearances as a player, through six Big Ten championships and four College World Series teams as an assistant coach, to two conference titles and a pair of NCAA Regionals as a head coach at Kent State, Hall was well-prepared for the task that faced him when he took over the reins at Georgia Tech in December 1993.

In his six years as the head coach at Kent State (1988-93), he guided the Golden Flashes to Mid-American Conference championships and bids to the NCAA Regionals in each of his last two seasons, compiling an 86-28 record during that time.

He forged a 208-117 (.640) record in his six years at Kent State, twice winning Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year honors. He also won more games than any other MAC school from 1989-93. He had 18 Kent State players drafted by major league organizations.

Before his first head-coaching position, Hall served as an assistant coach at the University of Michigan, where the Wolverines won the Big Ten six times, participated in seven NCAA Regionals and four College World Series. During his tenure, Hall coached future major leaguers Jim Abbott, Scott Kamieniecki, Barry Larkin, Hal Morris, Chris Sabo and Gary Wayne.

Larkin was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 2012, becoming the first of what could be many of Danny Hall’s former players to be enshrined.

A former president of the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA), Hall now sits on its Board of Directors and is directly responsible for future elected officers within the ABCA as a member of its Nominations Committee. Hall was also a contributing writer on base running techniques in Baseball Strategies, a book produced by the ABCA in 2002.

Hall was selected to the ABCA Hall of Fame in 2023, cementing his legacy in the sport of college baseball. He was also selected to the Miami (Ohio) Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998, the Kent State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2005 and was inducted into the heralded Miami Cradle of Coaches in 2007.

He is married to the former Kara Zufall and has three sons, Danny III, Carter and Colin.