Duke University has announced that they have hired former Wake Forest University pitching coach Corey Muscara to be their next head baseball coach. Muscara replaces Chris Pollard, who left to become the head coach at the University of Virginia last week.
This will be Muscara’s first experience as an NCAA Division 1 head coach. Muscara spent four years as the pitching coach at Wake Forest and was the assistant coach of the year in 2023. Before that, he was the pitching coach at the University of Maryland from 2018 to 2021 and an assistant coach at St. Johns University from 2013 to 2017.
This comes after Chris Pollard, the longtime Duke head coach, left to take the job at the University of Virginia to replace their long tenured head coach in Brian O’Connnor. O’Connor left to replace Chris Lemonis at Mississippi State after receiving a four-year contract worth $2.9 million annually.
Pollard was named the Duke baseball coach in 2013 and has led the program to new heights. After taking over a program that finished 21-34 in 2012, Pollard led a turnaround to the Duke program. In his 13 seasons, he had a career record of 420-296. The only losing season that he had at Duke was when they finished 26-29 in his first season. He led Duke to seven NCAA regionals and four NCAA super regionals during his time in Durham.
Duke finished this season 41-21 and eventually lost to Murray State in the NCAA super regional round in three games. Just days later, Pollard was the new head coach in Charlottesville. This comes after Duke had given Pollard an extension in 2023 after other national programs had shown interest in Pollard. This team, the pedigree of the Virginia job offer was just too much for him to pass up.
Muscara is familiar with the ACC and was a big contributor to developing Wake Forest into the program that it is today. He was crucial for Rhett Lowder and his development to becoming one of the best pitchers in the ACC on Wake Forest’s journey to the College World Series in 2023. He will look to help Duke continue their winning tradition by reloading in 2025.
WBN NCAA: https://worldbaseball.com/league/ncaa/
