John Lewis - Head Coach - 32nd Season
Coach Lewis will enter his 32nd season as a head coach at Kirkwood this spring, and still has hopes of his first national championship. Coach Lewis has guided the Eagles to four Junior College World Series appearances during his career. Kirkwood finished 8th in 1993, 2nd in 1995, 3rd in 1998 and 5th in 1999. Kirkwood is 351-208 over the past ten seasons and looks to continue on their success in 2011. His overall coaching record is 1063-563 which ranks him 7th of all active NJCAA coaches in wins.
Coach Lewis began his reign in 1979 as an assistant coach at Kirkwood and took over the head coaching duties the following year. Lewis serves as a part-time professor at Kirkwood in the Industrial Technology program, where he has put in 30+ years of teaching before retiring from his full-time status last year. Lewis has been married to his wife, Sandy, for 42 years and has two sons, Jeremy and Darren. Lewis has definitely influenced his family with the baseball tradition. Both of his sons played four years of college baseball. Jeremy, who played at the University of Iowa, went on to play three years of professional baseball in the Cubs organization. Darren, who played on Kirkwood's 1995 2nd place team and St. Ambrose's 1996 2nd place team, also served as an assistant on the 1998 team that finished 3rd nationally.
Many of Coach Lewis's former players are now in the coaching profession. Eric Snider is the assistant coach at the University of Illinois. Marty Sutherland is an assistant at the University of Northern Iowa, Travis Hergert is the pitching coach at NIACC, Mike Clement is the assistant coach at Texas A&M University, Chris Ramirez is the assistant at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Josh Kauten is the pitching coach at Heartland Community College, and Casey Pauli, Brian Miller and Will Scholer currently coach with him at Kirkwood. Three former players are currently playing professional baseball. Willie Collazo (LHP) is pitching for the New York Mets, John Sokoll, of Solon (LHP) is currently in Kansas City Royals minor league system, and Tyler Howe (RHP) is pitching in the New York Mets organization.
Lewis has received several awards during his "dynasty". He has been named the Iowa Junior College Coach of the Year six times (85-87-93-95-98-99) and the District B Coach of the Year four times (93-95-98-99). Coach Lewis was recently inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame last January.