KU’s Dan Fitzgerald a repeat winner and 7 Jayhawks earn all-Big 12 baseball honors
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- Dan Fitzgerald was voted Big 12 Coach of the Year for the second consecutive season.
- Kansas entered the Big 12 tournament as regular season champs with a 39-16 record.
- Seven Jayhawks earned all-Big 12 honors in a vote of the league’s coaches.
Kansas baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald assembled his players in the Hoglund Ballpark outfield prior to the start of practice on Tuesday afternoon.
He was the bearer of good news, informing his squad that seven Jayhawks had been named all-Big 12 in a vote of the league’s coaches.
KU’s fourth-year coach congratulated first-team all-league selections Tyson LeBlanc and Boede Rahe, second teamers Cade Baldridge, Josh Dykhoff and Dominic Voegele as well as honorable mention choices Brady Ballinger and Mason Cook.
This happy huddle was held one day after KU athletic director Travis Goff visited KU’s dugout at Hoglund Ballpark to inform the Big 12 regular-season champs that Fitzgerald had been voted Big 12 Coach of the Year for the second consecutive season.
“He was very humble,” LeBlanc, a junior shortstop from Maurice, Louisiana, said of Fitzgerald in a pre-Big 12 tournament interview session with media members after Tuesday’s practice.
“He put it all on us. He was like, ‘Look guys, this is the second year in a row I won it, but this has to do with hundreds of guys before you all even got here, and this award specifically is a team award.’
“He said, ‘This goes to the coach of the best team, and that’s that’s what I had. I coached the best team this year,’’’ LeBlanc added.
After taking over the program prior to the 2023 season, 48-year-old former LSU assistant coach Fitzgerald and his staff have brought the program all the way from last place in the Big 12 to first place in four years.
The Jayhawks will take a 39-16 record and No. 1 seed into Thursday’s 2:30 p.m., Central time, Big 12 Conference tournament quarterfinal against either No. 8 Baylor, No. 9 BYU or No. 12 Texas Tech. The single-elimination tourney will be held in Surprise, Arizona.
“He’s the greatest coach in the Big 12. He’s the greatest coach in the country. Everything he’s getting he’s really deserving,” said LeBlanc, who is hitting .323 with 19 home runs and 53 RBIs.
“We’re around him so much, he’s kind of like our second dad,” said Mason Cook, a sophomore pitcher from Keller, Texas, who is 4-1 with a 4.53 ERA. “The business aspect he brings to the game, to this program, it just keeps us sharp. He runs a tight ship. He’s awesome,” Cook added.
Fitzgerald is the first coach in KU program history to be named a baseball coach of the year in two separate seasons. Dave Bingham won Big Eight and ABCA District Coach of the Year in 1993. Bingham led the Jayhawks to the College World Series that season. Fitzgerald is the first back-to-back Big 12 Coach of the Year since Augie Garrido of Texas in 2010 and 2011.
Under Fitzgerald’s leadership, Kansas has at least 39 wins in back-to-back seasons for the second time in program history and the first since 1993-94. The Jayhawks won a school record 22 conference games and set a new program record with eighth conference series wins. The pitching staff also set a new single-season record in strikeouts.
“The coach of the year award reflects the entire work of the staff, team and administration,” Fitzgerald said Tuesday. I’m proud of our guys for their hard work and commitment to doing things right, on and off the field. I’m thankful and proud of my staff and our incredible administration for their commitment to moving our program forward.”
He added he was “beyond honored. It’s surreal to have us win it back to back, kind of overwhelming and yes, kind of surreal.”
Of his program, Fitzgerald said: “We’re thrilled to be where we’re at but still have a really long way to go. The ‘really long way to go’ thing is the thing that I probably spend more, more of my time thinking about,” Fitzgerald added.
Fitzgerald’s success at KU could make him a candidate for other coaching jobs. According to published reports, he could be on South Carolina’s short list for a new head baseball coach.
“I think the benefit of being at LSU and DBU (Dallas Baptist) is, I coached for two Hall of Fame coaches who were rumored in every job ever open, whether it was the big leagues or other college jobs,” Fitzgerald said. “You just know that 99.9% of the time when someone’s named, they’re not the person to get the job, and so I just learned a long time ago (to not pay attention to internet reports),” he said.
“I love Kansas,” Fitzgerald said.
“I am so thankful that I signed an extension here last year, and what we’re doing here is so special in terms of the national attention. I think again our focus is on the guys in our dugout, and I know the guys are aware of all the things because they don’t even have to look for it anymore. It just is delivered straight to their phone, but I can say that my favorite part of this team is their ability, and they let me kind of in on it. But our collective ability that when we’re inside that dugout, it’s all about us. For me, because I’m completely shut off to the outside world, that if I’m not informed by it, (by) my dugout, I have no idea what’s (being said),” Fitzgerald added.
This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 5:12 PM.
