New Alabama Baseball Coach Rob Vaughn His Own Man in Tuscaloosa

Vaughn is all about being himself as the head coach in Tuscaloosa.

Will Miller | Jun 13, 2023

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Newly-introduced Alabama baseball head coach Rob Vaughn has had his share of head coaching experience, even though he's just 35 years old. Now, he's taking over the reins at the Capstone just under a month shy of his 36th birthday, and one of the biggest things he's learned on his head coaching journey is to be himself.

"I was a young coach," Vaughn said. "I was 29 years old, I got handed the keys to the program [at Maryland], and I was still in a phase of figuring out who I was, and who I wanted to be as a coach, and how I wanted to do things. I'll be the first one to tell you I made a lot of mistakes. You're trying to figure out how to utilize talent, how do I handle responsibilities? And I didn't do a great job of that at the beginning because I didn't know how I fit."

Vaughn said he began his head coaching career under the impression that he would have to be the next John Szefc, the man who preceded him as the Terrapins' head coach.

"It took me a year of struggling and frustration and ups and downs to say, 'I don't need to be [Szefc]. I need to be me. I need to do what I love doing. I need to be involved. I need to be hands-on. I'm not a C.E.O. You're gonna see me out on the field every day with these kids. I'm going to be out in the middle of it with them."

He also emphasized honesty and authenticity between himself and his players, and said that is an area in which he has grown substantially as a head coach.

"I think you had to learn how to manage people, and be real with people, and be super authentic with people. I think early in my career, I wanted to protect the feelings of guys sometimes at the expense of telling the truth. Ultimately, if I'm really trying to help these young men be the best versions of who they can be, [I've] got to tell them the truth. Just growing, and learning to be honest, and cut through all the outside noise and tell the truth was something that was vital to what we were doing."

Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne was impressed by Vaughn's changes as a coach. Vaughn reflected on those changes with Byrne as he was moving through the search process, which impressed Byrne even more given Vaughn's relatively young age.

"He didn't come out of the gates really hot at Maryland, and he actually spent time [with] me talking to me and reflecting on what he did and how he changed as a coach," Byrne said. "As you get more gray hair, sometimes you're a little more reflective and have the ability to look at yourself and say, 'I need to do better at this.'... To see somebody at such an early age reflect and say, 'Man, I need to get better in some ways,' and then he talked to me about the steps he took to do that. That's really cool."

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