Entering his ninth year with WVU Baseball, new head coach Steve Sabins is the spitting image of loyalty, consistency, and hard work in Morgantown, but it was not always this way.
In fact, after finally completing his transition to head coach, Sabins finds himself lucky to have gotten that opportunity.
“Having an opportunity to become a head coach in where you worked for the last nine years is very, very rare, so I just feel beyond blessed to be able to keep my family in Morgantown,” Sabins said.
Considering the industry standard of movement for young coaches looking to make a name for themselves, Sabins’ surprise is certainly warranted. Before Wren Baker announced Sabins’ appointment as head coach ahead of the 2023-2024 season, Sabins himself considered offers to go elsewhere but stuck around for the job he truly wanted.
“We’re integrated into the community,” Sabins said. “To stay here is, again, a dream come true.”
Sabins’ personal background and career trajectory to this point is in direct opposition to his new opportunity as well. In five seasons as a collegiate player, Sabins found himself at four different schools at a variety of different levels.
“I met a lot of different coaches, played at a lot of different levels,” Sabins said. “The rules were different. You could change levels and continue to play.”
Capitalizing on the pre-transfer portal NCAA, Sabins left Angelina College in Texas after one season to go to Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, Fla. in 2008. After shining there, he jumped to Oklahoma State but did not see the field as a medical redshirt.
Sabins left Oklahoma State after one season for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, bringing him back to Daytona Beach for the final two seasons of a collegiate career full of movement.
As a young coach, though, it took Sabins just two spots to find somewhere to settle down. After two years as a graduate assistant at Oklahoma State, Sabins became the Cowboys’ player development coordinator in 2014 and was a volunteer assistant in 2015.
With that little experience on a staff, Sabins found his first miracle in Morgantown when coach Randy Mazey offered him an assistant coach position. With the hiring, Sabins was made the youngest coach in the Power Five.
That miracle quickly evolved to the second one, as Sabins was given the recruiting coordinator position in 2018 despite no previous recruiting experience. Sabins stuck with that role through the 2023 season, balancing assistant coaching alongside it through 2021 before his promotion to associate head coach.
Before the 2023-2024 campaign, Randy Mazey announced his planned retirement, and just like that, the program that gave Sabins so many first-time opportunities would be the one where he became head coach for the first time.
After eight seasons on edge over the possibility of leaving Morgantown at any time, Sabins can finally settle down as WVU’s new head coach. Settling down may be a new feeling for Sabins, and one that would likely shock him coming right out of his college journeyman days, but after a near decade in the making, Sabins found his home in Morgantown.
Photo by Wesley Shoemaker, Blue Gold Sports
