'I knew Highlands had it in us': Highlands head baseball coach Jeremy Baioni resigns

Highlands head baseball coach Jeremy Baioni announced that the 2024 season was his final as the leader of the Bluebirds program. Baioni took over the program in 2009 after serving as a junior varsity coach for three seasons, but cited the growing time commitment between head coaching duties and other jobs as the reason for stepping away.

"I put so much into the program over the years and to a fault sometimes I go all in," Baioni, who works full time at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, said. "I told many people that I've spoken to today that it just wasn't sustainable. The way I feel a program needs to be run to be competitive, with not having a job on campus or anyone on the coaching staff who's not on campus, it makes it really difficult if you want to do it the right way.

"It is a lot of work. You're going from mid-September all the way through to Memorial Day or June 1st. That time and effort has taken a lot of focus away from my career and my job and that needs to be a little bit more of a focus for me. It is such a time commitment to do it the way I felt it needed to be done and I did not want to take away from my career, my job or my baseball players."

Under Baioni, the Highlands program grew to three teams, adding a freshman team to get more kids into the program. Highlands went 319-258 under Baioni with four 9th Region championships and a pair of state runner-up finishes in 2015 and 2018.

"I never had a goal of chasing a championship, whether it was a state championship or a regional championship," Baioni said. "Frankly, the goal was to make sure my kids and their friends had a competitive baseball program that they could be proud of to play in when they go through high school. I won back-to-back regional titles at Highlands when I was in high school, so I wanted them to see that because I knew Highlands had it in us to have a competitive team on a regular basis."

Baioni also coached left-handed pitcher Drew Rom who was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles out of Highlands in 2018, later making his Major League debut in 2023 with the St. Louis Cardinals.

"If anything that we've done at Highlands as a coaching staff in 2009 to 2024 was make baseball attractive at Highlands," Baioni said. "We didn't make Drew Rom a Major League pitcher. He's uber-talented, but we got Drew Rom excited about baseball."

Baioni will still have a mark in high school baseball in Kentucky as the Director of Operations for Prep Baseball Report Kentucky while also helping with recruiting and scouting of players throughout the state.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: 'I knew Highlands had it in us': Highlands head baseball coach Jeremy Baioni resigns