CLAREMONT, Calif. – Former Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball
player and Claremont McKenna College alumnus Morgan Cummins '07 has
been named as the interim head coach of the CMS baseball team,
Director of Athletics Mike Sutton '76 has announced.
"Morgan was an outstanding player for us as a three-year captain, so with his playing and coaching experience, he certainly understands what it takes to be successful in Claremont, in our conference and at the Division III level," said Sutton, the William B. Arce Professor and George R. Roberts Fellow of CMS Athletics.
The former All-American for the Stags has been coaching for much of the last seven-plus years since his graduation, including two seasons with CMS (2008 and 2009) where the team batted .342 and .330, respectively, under his instruction. Most recently, Cummins served as the interim head varsity baseball coach at Coronado High School near San Diego for a season and led the team to the CIF quarterfinals. Cummins has coached at Coronado High School since 2009 in a variety of roles. For the last two years, Cummins has worked at the Coronado Baseball Academy as the program director where he oversaw player development.
"I'm very excited to be returning to CMS to coach the baseball team. Stags Baseball was invaluable in my developmental process and I look forward to giving back to our newest Stags in the same manner that Coach Town, Coach Helber, Coach Keller, and Coach Vasquez did for me," said Cummins. "I plan on providing our student-athletes with the best baseball experience possible, while molding future leaders in the process."
As a player for CMS, Cummins was the team captain for three seasons, a NCAA Division III first team All-American, four-time All-Conference selection and a two-time All-West Region player. He also is a CMS Wall of Fame Scholar Athlete which goes to student-athletes who graduated with a 3.0 grade-point average or better and were named first team All-Conference. Following his career at CMS, Cummins continued his playing career for a season in the Florida Marlins organization for the Class A Jamestown Jammers.
Cummins graduated from Claremont McKenna with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Government in 2007 and in 2012, completed his master's degree in school counseling at National University.
Joining Cummins on the coaching staff as a bench coach serving in an advisory role is Art Mazmanian, the long-time head coach at Dorsey High School and most recently Mount San Antonio College. Mazmanian has over 40 years of coaching experience in Southern California at the high school and college levels and has over 60 years of baseball involvement as a player, manager and scout. Mazmanian was an All-American second baseman on the national championship winning 1948 baseball team at USC. After college, he spent six seasons playing in the minor leagues, for the New York Yankees and Kansas City farm systems, reaching as high as Triple-A. His coaching career began in the St. Louis Cardinals organization. He spent time as the manager with several minor league teams before returning to Los Angeles to coach at Dorsey High School and then Mount San Antonio College. Mazmanian also served as an assistant coach on the 1984 United States Olympic Baseball Team.
Cummins takes over the interim role and fills the position left by Randy Town who stepped down from head coaching duties on Aug. 20. Town led the CMS baseball team for 27 years and racked up 500-plus wins before stepping down to take on an administrative role in the CMS athletic department.