Blinn College head baseball coach Dusty Hart has been named the 2024 American Baseball Coaches Association/ATEC National Coach of the Year for NJCAA Division I Baseball.
The ABCA/ATEC National and Regional Coaches of the Year are selected by members of the ABCA All-America & Coach of the Year Committees in nine divisions: NCAA Divisions I, II and III, NAIA, NJCAA Divisions I, II and III, Pacific Association Division and high school.
Hart was among 11 honorees.
The Blinn skipper is now a two-time winner of the ABCA/ATEC award, having also earned the accolade following a national championship with Grayson College in 2008.
In just his second season at Blinn, Hart and the Bucs captured the program’s first baseball national title. Blinn defeated Northwest Florida State College 11-5 in the championship game of the JUCO World Series on June 1 at Sam Suplizio Field in Grand Junction, Colo.
“It’s an honor to be recognized, but at the end of the day, this award is a Blinn College baseball award,” Hart said. “Having great administration and support; having great assistants like Eric Weaver, Cameron Rupp, Jimmy Kirk, and Kyle Peschel; and of course, being blessed with the amazing group of players who went out and won all of those games for us, that’s what this award is about. This just serves as another reminder of how special that entire group of people really was this year.”
Blinn finished its campaign with a 47-17 record, a Region XIV South Division regular-season crown, a Region XIV South Regional Tournament title, and a Mid-South District championship.
Hart is now 93-32 in two seasons at Blinn and holds a 718-314 career mark across 18 seasons as an NJCAA head coach.
Blinn has competed in intercollegiate athletics since 1903 and captured 48 NJCAA national championships since 1987.
