Rob Cooper was hired as the Head Baseball Coach in June of 2025. Cooper brings with him over 30 years of baseball coaching experience, spending 25 of those years at the NCAA Division I level.
Cooper has been a head coach twice in his illustrious college baseball career, spending nine seasons with the Wright State Raiders in the Horizon League and 10 seasons with the Penn State Nittany Lions in the Big Ten. At Wright State, he coached the Raiders to seven 30-win seasons, winning two Horizon League Regular Season Championships and three Horizon League Tournament Championships. He was also named the Horizon League Coach of the Year twice, in 2010 and 2011.
At Penn State, by just his third season, Cooper had doubled the Nittany Lions year to year win total, posting a record of 28-27. In 2015, he helped Penn State become the first U.S. baseball team at any level to defeat a Cuban National Series team when the Nittany Lions took a four-game trip to the island following the restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba and the United States.
In total, Rob Cooper has close to 500 wins as a head college baseball coach.
Cooper also has international experience, having been selected to four coaching stints with USA Baseball in 2000, 2007, 2009 and 2013. In his final stint, he was the skipper for USA Baseball's 18U National Team and helped lead the stars and stripes to an 8-1 record in World Cup play. Team USA won their final seven games in a row to capture the gold medal. Following the tournament, Cooper was selected as the Rod Dedeauz USA Baseball Coach of the Year.
Before becoming a head coach, Cooper was an assistant coach at Miami, Wake Forest, Tulane, Sacremento City College and Oral Roberts.
Along with his collegiate experience, Cooper was also an associate scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1990-92.
He earned his bachelor's degree in psychology from Miami in 1994 and master's in sports sciences/education in 1996.
Cooper is married to his wife, Maureen, and has two sons, Jake and Tyson.
