CLAREMONT, Calif. – Bill Walkenbach has been selected as the next head coach for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps' baseball program, as announced on July 1 by CMS Director of Athletics Michael Sutton, who is the William B. Arce Professor and George R. Roberts Fellow. Walkenbach will be the seventh coach in the 58-year history of the Stag baseball program.
"We feel fortunate to have hired a person with an extensive and such a successful coaching background to lead our program," Sutton says. "Bill's connections to Claremont, his success as a player at Cornell and in developing a winning program in a weather-challenged area showed us the 'can do' attitude that CMS coaches need to be successful. I am pleased to welcome Bill to our coaching staff and we look forward to his leadership of Stags baseball."
Walkenbach joins CMS after having served seven years as the head baseball coach at NCAA Division I Cornell University. He led the team to its first ever Ivy League Championship in 2012 and set single season school records with 31 wins overall and going 14-6 in conference play. The team won the Lou Gehrig Division of the Ivy League in 2009 and 2012. Academically, the Big Red baseball team has been recognized for being in the top 10% of Division I baseball for all seven years under Walkenbach.
"I am honored to return to my hometown of Claremont to become a part of the CMS Athletics Family," says Walkenbach. "I would like to thank Mike Sutton, Dr. Nick Warner and the rest of the search committee for showing the confidence in me to hire me for this position. These colleges have meant a great deal to my family and me for my entire life and I could not be happier to be here. I look forward to doing everything I can to get CMS Baseball to the top of the SCIAC once again."
Before his tenure at Cornell, Walkenbach was the head coach of the Division III Franklin & Marshall baseball program in Lancaster, Penn. Under his tutelage, the Diplomats won two regular season Centennial Conference championships in 2006 and 2007 and achieved a 69-42 overall record, the highest percentage during any three-year period in program history. The team finished the 2006 season ranked No. 13 in Division III, the highest ranking for the program to date.
Walkenbach completed his Master of Sports Administration at Georgia State while on staff as an assistant coach at Emory University for the 2002 and 2003 seasons. In 2003, Emory was a Division III World Series participant, finishing the season ranked No. 5 in the nation.
Walkenbach earned his bachelor's degree at Cornell and was a four-year All-Ivy shortstop selection including earning Rookie of the Year honors in 1995. He appears 17 times in the career record book for Cornell Baseball and was the former homerun record holder with 21 during his career. He was inducted into Cornell's Hall of Fame in 2010.
A Claremont native, Walkenbach, his wife Beth, and their two daughters will move back to his hometown to join the CMS community in early August.