Jul. 12—Jake Fiorella has been named the new head coach of the Owensboro High School baseball team, OHS athletic director Todd Harper announced in an introductory ceremony Sunday afternoon at the school.
Fiorella takes the reins of the Red Devils after spending the last four years as head coach at Louisville Male, where he helped the Bulldogs go 88-32 (.733 winning percentage) with one district title and three region tournament appearances.
Even with that success, Fiorella couldn’t resist the opportunity to return to OHS, where he was a 2004 graduate.
“We’re really excited about this opportunity,” he said. “I know there’s a lot of growth to happen within the program, but I feel like we’ve got the right people in place. We’ve got a good plan to get this thing going.
“There’s a lot of work to do, but we’re excited about that work and we’re excited about that process starting. I hope to get that going as soon as our feet hit the ground here in Owensboro.”
The decision to move came about when Fiorella and his wife, Erin, had a baby three months ago. They’d been looking for a way to get back to western Kentucky when the opportunity presented itself.
“My wife and I were really interested in getting back to Owensboro,” he said. “Raising our family here in this city was really important to us, and it’s all just kind of fell into place. I was looking for teaching jobs here, I applied for a couple and then the coaching job came open.
“It just seemed like the perfect storm for us to go all in for this great opportunity, and that’s what we did. We’re still trying to piece it together, but we’re excited for sure.”
He even cut a recent family vacation to Florida short so he could be in town for the interview, despite Harper and the hiring committee insisting they could work around his schedule.
“I think that speaks volumes to how much he wants to be part of this community, how much he wants to be back here, to be a Red Devil,” Harper said. “That’s not why he got the job. He got the job for a lot of different reasons.”
Prior to his tenure at Male, Fiorella was the head coach at Louisville Waggener for five years, an assistant coach at Louisville Manual for five years and had one-year stops at Louisville Ballard and Apollo.
According to Harper, veteran Male athletic director John Kelsey couldn’t have said nicer things about Fiorella.
“He said that Jake is as good of a coach as he’s ever had,” Harper said. “He went on to say that in his opinion, Jake is the best baseball coach in the state.”
With administrators, players, parents and fans in attendance Sunday, Fiorella took the time to meet with every one of them — and even had a message for his team.
“To the players: I’m going to push you hard,” he said. “It’s going to be tough, but you’re going to be loved. That’s important, and that’s what it takes to build a program. I have every confidence that this program is going to get to the heights that it was. You look up on the wall — state championships, regional championships — we’ll be competing for those for years to come.”
Before that can happen, however, Fiorella knows he’ll have to help develop a program that went 6-21 last season with one of the youngest overall teams in school history.
“The most important thing is the way we play, the way we conduct ourselves, the way we prepare,” he said. “If we focus on these things, and caring about one another, the wins are going to take care of themselves. I truly believe that.
“If we can establish a strong culture of work and care for one another and have integrity and character, we’re going to win. It doesn’t matter who we have, it doesn’t matter if they’re eighth graders or if they’re seniors, I feel very confident that we can do that.”