July 24, 2007
ATLANTA – Tom Kinkelaar, a three-year member of the Georgia Tech baseball staff, has been promoted to assistant coach, head coach Danny Hall announced Tuesday.
Kinkelaar, who has served as the director of baseball operations since his arrival in 2004, replaces pitching coach Bobby Moranda, who became the new Western Carolina University head baseball coach a week ago.
“I’m very excited to add Tom Kinkelaar to our coaching staff,” Hall said. “He really understands the type of student-athlete that we have to recruit to Georgia Tech because he’s been on our staff three years, watching how we go about our recruiting and seeing the types of kids that we have in our program.”
Kinkelaar brings a wealth of experience to the staff, having coached in various capacities since his graduation from Miami (Ohio) in 1977.
Prior to his arrival on the Flats, he completed a successful four-year stint as a teacher and head basketball coach at Wakefield High School in Raleigh, N.C., where he led the Wolverines to the North Carolina 4A state championship in 2004.
Kinkelaar spent 1996-99 as an assistant coach and the recruiting coordinator at Miami (Ohio). Working primarily with the RedHawk pitching staff, Kinkelaar had 12 of his pitchers drafted into professional baseball during his three years in Oxford.
“Tom has been a teacher and a coach ever since he graduated from college,” added Hall. “That was something I was looking for – someone that could be a great teacher of pitching to our players. He’s done just about everything that our players are getting ready to do. He was a great pitcher himself, and I know that he will be able to relate very well with our pitchers.”
A fourth-round draft pick of the New York Mets in the 1973 Major League Baseball draft, Kinkelaar went on to pitch four years in the RedHawk program before earning his degree in education in 1977.
He spent the next 19 years coaching and teaching in the Illinois and North Carolina High School Systems, including stints at Mundelein High School in Mundelein, Ill. from 1977-80 and at Sanderson (1980-93) and Leesville (1993-94) High Schools in Raleigh. From 1994-96, Kinkelaar was the head basketball coach at New Hanover High School in Wilmington while serving as the volunteer assistant baseball coach at UNC Wilmington.
Kinkelaar is married to the former Margaret Kerr, and has one daughter, Sara.
