New VCU head baseball coach Sean Thompson discusses his promotion

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) announced on Monday, that Sean Thompson would be promoted from pitching coach to head coach.

Thompson became the Rams’ third head coach in four years and the youngest active Division I head baseball coach.

When speaking with 8Sports Thompson spoke about his promotion saying that it was a dream come true.

“Dr. Lampe and Ed McLaughlin were fantastic about it and so was everybody that was involved in the search process,” said Thompson adding. “Going through the process was a no-brainer I knew it was something that I wanted more than anything in this world and when I finally got the phone call it was a dream come true,” Thompson said.

Thompson (28) surpassed Manhattan Interim head coach Steven Rosen (29) as the youngest head coach in all of DI baseball. It was a fact that he found out about after accepting the job. “

“I had an idea that I might be the youngest head coach and then obviously I saw something on Twitter that it had came out. A couple guys mentioned it to me,” Thompson said of the fact. “It’s a great opportunity. I’ve been very fortunate to be around some unbelievable head coaches and mentors and they’ve helped me get through this process. It’s been years and years of me putting together what my plan would look like if I got this opportunity and it just happened to happen this year”

Thompson played baseball at VCU from 2015 to 2018, during which he had a 27-10 record, 249 strikeouts and 3.3 earned runs allowed per game (ERA) over 300 innings. His 27 wins are the second-most by a pitcher in VCU’s history.

Thompson returned to VCU in 2021 as the team’s Director of Pitching Development and then became the pitching coach at Monmouth University in 2022, during which the team had the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s second-most strikeouts and second-fewest walks.

Thompson became an assistant coach at Florida International University in 2023 before returning to VCU again as the team’s pitching coach last season, during which the team had the Atlantic 10 Conference’s lowest ERA and won the conference tournament.

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