Baseball
- Title:
- Coordinator of Camps
Wade Hedges is in his fourth season as a full-time member of the Mississippi State baseball staff, serving as coordinator of MSU’s winter and summer baseball camps.
Hedges, a native of Athens, Ga., previously served as MSU baseball’s administrative assistant in 2003-04 while teaching in the kinesiology department at Mississippi State University.
In addition to his role as coordinator of Mississippi State’s baseball camps, Hedges also oversees the Bulldog catching corps, serves as director for the Mississippi State Dugout Club and coordinates the program’s equipment needs. Numbered among his baseball pupils is All-American catcher Edward Easley, the 2007 Johnny Bench Award and Cellular South Ferriss Trophy winner and a supplemental first-round draft pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Hedges is a veteran of more than a decade of baseball coaching on a variety of levels, with coaching stops at the high school, junior college and both the NCAA Division I and Division II levels.
He launched his coaching career in 1995-96 as an undergraduate assistant at Florida Southern College, where he served on the staff of ABCA Hall of Fame inductee Chuck Anderson and current MSU assistant Russ McNickle. He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology at FSC in 1996, and for the next two seasons served as a graduate assistant at his alma mater. During his three seasons on staff at the Lakeland, Fla., school the Moccasins posted a 125-47 record, claiming two Sunshine State Conference titles and advancing to the NCAA Division II Tournament each year. Florida Southern was chosen by Collegiate Baseball newspaper in 1998 as the nation’s top NCAA Division II baseball program.
In August 1998 Hedges was named head coach at Sebring (Fla.) High School. He guided the SHS Blue Streak squad to a district title in 1999 and a school-best runner-up finish in the 2000 regional finals, for which he was honored as the coach of the year in the district, the county and the area. A full-time instructor during his two-year stay at Sebring, Hedges was honored as the school’s ninth grade Teacher of the Year in 1999 and 2000 and was selected for inclusion in "Who’s Who Among Teachers".
He continued his baseball coaching career on the junior college level as an assistant coach at Polk Community College in Winter Haven, Fla., in 2000-01. Hedges served as the chief assistant to PCC head coach Johnny Wiggs, directing the team’s offensive and defense efforts. The Vikings established team records for hits, doubles, hit-batsmen, and double plays during Hedges’ tenure there, while five PCC players advanced their careers in professional baseball and 18 others earned scholarships to four-year colleges and universities in that three-year span.
While an administrative assistant at MSU in 2003-04, Hedges served as a hitting and pitching coordinator for Mississippi State’s winter and summer baseball camps and assisted with the compilation of the team’s SEC scouting reports.
A graduate of Miamisburg (Ohio) High School, Hedges attended Florida Southern College, where he was a national finalist for the 1996 NCAA Division II Sear’s Director’s Cup Postgraduate Scholarship. In January 1998 he earned a master’s degree in sport science at the U.S. Sports Academy.
Hedges has also accumulated extensive coaching experience in summer baseball, serving as an assistant coach for the Wausau (Wisc.) Woodchucks of the Northwoods Collegiate League in 1996 and in subsequent summer baseball camp instructor positions at Florida, LSU, Tennessee, Central Florida and Mississippi State.
Hedges, 33, is married to the former Jennifer Coppage of Merritt Island, Fla., a two-time NCAA College World Series participant as a softball player at Florida Southern College. They have two sons, Ty Gilbert, 4, and Wyatt Michael, 2.
Coaching Career
- 1996: Student Assistant, Florida Southern College
- 1997-98: Graduate Assistant, Florida Southern College
- 1999-2000: Head Coach, Sebring (Fla.) High School
- 2001-03: Assistant Coach, Polk [FL] Community College
- 2004: Administrative Assistant, Mississippi State University
- 2005-present: Coordinator of Camps, Mississippi State University
