Head Coach Tim Pettorini

Phone: (330) 263-2180
e-mail: tpettorini@wooster.edu

The driving force behind a program that is regarded as one of the finest in NCAA Division III is Tim Pettorini, The College of Wooster’s veteran head baseball coach.

During his 26 years at the helm, Pettorini has guided Wooster to a league-record 11 North Coast Athletic Conference championships (1985, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006), while also taking the Fighting Scots to the NCAA Mideast Regional Tournament on a regular basis (17 times). In addition, Wooster has gained berths in the eight-team Div. III National Championship Series by winning the regional championship on four occasions (1989, 1994, 1997, 2005).

Pettorini, among the top-10 Div. III coaches all-time in both victories and winning percentage, has directed the Scots to an overall record of 841-310-6 (.729). In conference play alone, Wooster’s mark under Pettorini stands at 349-99-1 (.778), which includes three seasons in the Ohio Athletic Conference. Along the way, he has been selected as the conference’s Coach of the Year seven times (1987, 1988, 1990, 1995, 2002, 2004, 2006) and Mideast Region Coach of the Year four times (1989, 1994, 1997, 2005).

Some of Pettorini’s most notable campaigns have come over the last decade-plus, as Wooster has gone 451-114-1 (.798) during the past 12 years. The last two seasons, the Scots were ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the NCAA Div. III coaches’ poll every week of the regular season, while producing the program’s first 40-win season since 1998 during 2007 (42-7) and becoming the first NCAC team to win three consecutive conference titles in 2006 (38-9). In 2005, Wooster finished third at the national tourney after becoming the first NCAC team to win the conference and regional crowns in the same season, while in 2004, the Scots hosted an NCAA regional tournament at Art Murray Field after sweeping then-No. 5 Denison University for another league championship.

In 2002, one of Wooster’s most talented squads put together a 34-3 regular season, highlighted by a 9-7 victory over Ohio State University – the program’s second of three-straight wins over Div. I teams (University of Akron 8-4 in 2001, Kent State University 5-4 in 2003) – and was ranked No. 1 for four-straight weeks. The 1997 and 1998 Scot teams posted back-to-back 40-win seasons, including a school-record 46 in 1997, when Wooster reached the national championship game before falling to the University of Southern Maine.

Prior to accepting the Wooster position in 1982, Pettorini had taught and coached baseball at Fremont Ross High School. He turned the Little Giant program around, leading the team to a record of 64-20 (.762) between 1977-81.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Pettorini holds both a bachelor’s degree (1973) and a master’s degree (1980) from Bowling Green State University. As an undergraduate, he played baseball for the Falcons and was a four-year starter in the outfield. In fact, Pettorini was an All-Mid-American Conference selection and was drafted by the San Diego Padres at the end of his senior year.

But, Pettorini bypassed a chance to play professional baseball for the second time in order to pursue his true love – a career in coaching. He previously had been drafted four years earlier by the Philadelphia Phillies after earning all-state honors at Columbus Eastmoor High School.

Pettorini and his wife Rhoda live in Wooster and have two sons – Tim (35) and Terry (27), who both inherited their father’s passion for baseball. Tim was a four-year letterwinner at Wooster from 1992-95, playing an integral role on the Scots’ 1994 team, which advanced to the Div. III National Championship Series, while Terry was an infielder and three-year letterwinner at Ohio State from 2001-03.