Kirkwood Community College

Baseball Coaches

Head Coach - John Lewis (Coe College)
Office: (319) 398-4910 email: jlewis@kirkwood.edu

Coach Lewis will enter his 30th 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 over the last ten seasons. Kirkwood finished 8th in 1993, 2nd in 1995, 3rd in 1998 and 5th in 1999. Kirkwood is 306-152 over the past eight seasons and looks to continue on their success in 2008. His overall coaching record is 1005-503.

Coach Lewis began his reign in 1978 as an assistant coach at Kirkwood and took over the head coaching duties the following year. Lewis serves as a professor at Kirkwood in the CAD/Mechanical Engineering Technology program, where he has put in 30+ years of teaching. Lewis has been married to his wife, Sandy, for 40 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, Travis Hergert is the pitching coach at NIACC, Mike Clement is the assistant coach at the University of Texas A&M University, Chris Ramirez is the assistant at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and Casey Pauli and Brian Miller currently coach with him at Kirkwood. Five former players are currently playing professional baseball. Wes Obermueller (RHP), a Vinton product, is pitching in the majors with the Florida Marlins. Willie Collazo (LHP) is pitching for the New York Mets, John Sokoll, of Solon (LHP) is currently in Kansas City Royals minor league system, Tyler Howe is also pitching in the New York Mets organization. Josh Kauten (RHP), also of Vinton, was an 11^th round draft pick in 2004 by the Detroit Tigers.

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).

Assistant Coach - Brian Miller brian.miller3@mchsi.com

Coach Miller enters his third season on the Eagles staff where he will serve as the pitching coach and helps with recruiting. Brian is a former 1991 Kirkwood Eagle after redshirting at UNI in his freshman year and then playing at St. Petersburg Junior College in 1990.

Coach Miller began coaching in 1993 at Iowa City’s City High and was there until taking the head coaching position at Mid-Prairie in 2000, a position he still holds. He has guided Mid-Prairie to the state tournament four times in the last eight years, finishing third in 2001, 2006 and 2007 and winning the state championship in 2004. Brian was nominated as district coach of the year in 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, and was named State Coach of the Year in 2004. Coach Miller was named ABCA Regional Coach of the Year in 2008. In 1999, Coach Miller started the Johnson County Legion baseball program. They have won four out of the last five legion state baseball championships, and finished second in the 2004 Central Plaines regional.

Brian owns his own business, The T-Shirt Mill, in Iowa City where he lives with his wife and three children.

Assistant Coach - Casey Pauli (Wartburg) Office: (319) 398-5596 email: cpauli@kirkwood.edu

Coach Pauli enters his second season at Kirkwood and third year coaching. Casey will be working with the infielders and hitters as well as running the off-season strength and conditioning program. He will also spend some time recruiting. Casey began his playing career at Kirkwood and went on to Wartburg College before coaching there for a year. While at Wartburg he served as the outfield coach and assisted the hitters during the 2007 season. Casey coached three all-region players of which two received all-American honors.

Coach Pauli began his playing career at Kirkwood after playing high school baseball in Scottsdale, Arizona. Casey was a two year starter while at Kirkwood and was an all-region infielder his sophomore year. Casey transferred to Wartburg College where he was an all-conference and all-region infielder his junior year. As a senior in 2006, he was named 1st team all-conference and 1^st team central region. He led the team hitting .455 his senior year which is currently third in the record books for single season batting average at Wartburg.

Casey holds a Master's degree in Sports Administration and is currently employed by Kirkwood Community College as a supervisor in the recreation center and also teaches a couple classes in the PE department. Casey was recently married to his wife, Cari and reside in Cedar Rapids.

Assistant Coach - Jeremy Lewis (Iowa)

This will be Jeremy Lewis’s fourth season as a part time assistant working with the catchers. Lewis has a long time affiliation with the program having served as the bat boy growing up along with his father Coach Lewis. After retiring from professional baseball in 1998 he returned helping occasionally during the fall season.

During his playing days Jeremy was a two time all-state elite player holding numerous single season and career records at Jefferson High School. He was drafted as a catcher by the New York Yankees following high school but chose to attend the University of Iowa where he lettered four years. He served as captain his senior season while leading the team in average, RBI’s, and home runs.

Following college Lewis went on to play professionally for the Minnesota Skeeters (North Central League) and the Brandon Grey Owls (Prairie League) independent leagues. Jeremy then signed to catch for the Chicago Cubs organization. He spent two seasons with the Cubs playing for the Rockford Cubbies (Midwest League) and the Daytona Cubs (Florida State League). He then signed with the Montreal Expos organization playing briefly for the Jupiter Hammerheads (Florida State League) before retiring. Jeremy works for United Fire Group in their Bond Department as an Underwriter. He currently resides in Marion.