Lincoln
University Appoints Paul K. Johnson as Head Baseball Coach
Monday,
March 3, 2003
 | Coach
Brings Winning Ways, Diamond Experience to Lions’ Program
Season Opens at
Home On March 8th Against McDaniel College
Lincoln University, PA
(www.lincoln.edu) — Lincoln University
has appointed Paul K. Johnson as its new head baseball coach. Coach Johnson brings
a wealth of organized baseball experience—-most notably from the youth and college
ranks--to the Lincoln program. The Lions will open the 2003 season—-weather and
field conditions permitting— in a home doubleheader against McDaniel College (formerly
Western Maryland University) on Saturday, March 8 at 12 noon. The team will play
a 22-game schedule. |
Johnson’s previous collegiate experience
includes assistant coaching stints at Bucks County Community College (Pa.) and
Montgomery County Community College (Pa.) during the 1999 and 2000 seasons. While
at Bucks County Community College, he was an interim head baseball coach at one
juncture of the 1999 season and also served as a first and third base coach. Johnson
was also the team’s hitting instructor.
Johnson, a 1992 graduate of Drexel
University in Philadelphia who majored in business administration, has also experienced
a great deal of success on the city’s youth baseball scene as a head coach in
the Philadelphia Phillies Senior Intramural RBI (Revitalizing Baseball In the
Inner Cities) League Program (ages 16-18). As head coach of the RBI League’s Philly
Area Black Sox of Sayre/Morris Recreation Center, Johnson led his team to league
championships in 2002, 1998, 1997 and 1996. This included a 22-0 record in 1996.
Johnson will continue to coach the Black Sox baseball team at the end of the Lions’
season.
Johnson was the only non-high school or non-collegiate coach to
be selected to the East-West Ambassadors Baseball Tour to Puerto Rico in 1995.
Johnson’s 13-year youth baseball coaching record is 183-53-3, which includes nine
league championships, 12 division titles and 12 championship appearances.
A
number of Johnson’s youth players, including Marc Holley (Lincoln ‘01), Eric Pugh
(Greensboro College) and Andre Andrews (Penn State-Abington) have moved onto the
college ranks. Johnson, who has also coached on the American Legion and Babe Ruth
League levels, hopes to utilize his youth baseball connections along the Northeast
corridor (specifically New York to Washington, D.C.) to improve the Lions baseball
program.
“We’ve got a team with a lot of potential,” said Johnson. “I’m
really looking forward to the new season. Our guys have been working hard to get
ready for the upcoming season. I’m also looking forward to bringing the most talented
baseball players available to the Lincoln program. High school and inner-city
youth baseball programs along the Northeast corridor has greatly improved in recent
years.”
Coach Johnson is committed to teaching the fundamentals of the
game—aggressive base running/stealing, consistent hitting, effective pitching
and solid defense—to give his teams the best opportunity to be successful.
For
more information about Lincoln University, please visit us on the web at
www.lincoln.edu.
For more information,
contact:
Samuel W. Pressley, Director
Howard G. Kelly, Jr. Assistant
Director
Lincoln University's Office of Marketing & Communications, 610-932-1094;
e-mail: spressley@lu.lincoln.edu;
home: 856-582-9574; hkelly@lu.lincoln.edu
