A baseball coach since 1974 and head coach at San Jose State since 1987, Sam Piraro has decidedto hang up his spikes.The long-time coach will retire from baseball, ending hiscareer that has produced more than 1,000 wins, 806 of them with the Spartans.I have been extremely honored to be the San Jose State University head baseballcoach for the past 25 years, Piraro said in a statement. I have been blessedby being associated with wonderful young men and loyal assistant coaches. Ihave established a lifetime of friendships along the way.Piraro is the winningest coach in San Jose Statehistory and had just six losing seasons with the Spartans. They won Western AthleticConference championships three times in Piraros tenure, earned NCAA BaseballTournament berths twice and made the schools first appearance in the CollegeWorld Series in 2000.Piraro was named conference coach of the year nine timesthroughout his career, five times with MissionCollege and four times with San Jose State.Piraros success came without sacrificing academics as hisSpartans latest multi-year Academic Progress Rate score of 982 was an all-timehigh.Under Sam's leadership, we had many successes andmeaningful achievements on the playing field and academically, interimdirector of athletics Marie Tuite said in a statement. We wish Sam and his familyall the best in the future.Tuite said associate head coach Mark OBrien would serve asinterim head coach while a nationwide search was conducted for Pirarossuccessor.
Colin Becht is an intern with CSNBayArea.com and a senior at Northwestern University
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