Mid-Continent University athletic director Joe Zakowicz has hired Shawn Yarbrough as the Cougars' new baseball coach for the 2008-09 season. Yarbrough replaces William Russell, who coached 4 seasons at MCU.
A resident of Paducah, Kentucky and graduate of Lone Oak High School, Yarbrough begins his first year of collegiate coaching, but is no stranger to teaching the fundamentals of baseball and played four seasons of collegiate baseball.
Since 2007, he has owned and served as hitting instructor for Diamond Academy in Paducah, offering students from ages 8-22 private instruction in all facets of baseball and softball and core agility strengthening and vision training. Since 2005, Diamond Academy also has conducted college preparatory fall league, consisting of 56 juniors and seniors from the western Kentucky, southern Illinois, and western Tennessee regions. Yarbrough has coached more than 20 student-athletes from western Kentucky who have signed college baseball scholarships in the past three seasons.
Yarbrough also travels as a recommending scout for the Cincinnati Reds baseball club, evaluating players' capabilities and skills in the surrounding area and from 1999-2007, Yarbrough served as Assistant Store Manager for Foot Locker/Champs in Paducah, specializing in team fittings and team orders for footwear, bats, uniforms, bags, and team gear.
A graduate of McNeese State University in Louisiana, Yarbrough earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mass communications in 2004, and played NCAA Division I baseball his senior season after transferring from the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where he participated in the NCAA Championships in 2003 as a junior. Yarbrough's collegiate career began at John A. Logan Community College in Illinois, where Yarbrough set a single-season record with 18 home runs and earned preseason NJCAA All-America honors from Baseball America. Yarbrough led Logan CC to back-to-back conference titles and the 2002 NJCAA World Series. He also earned his Associate of Arts degree in 2002.
After graduation from Logan and prior to transferring to OIe Miss, he played for the Sanford Mariners in the New England Collegiate League, and the following summer, played for the Fayetteville Swamp Dogs in the Coastal Plains Collegiate League. After graduation from McNeese State, Yarbrough played independent professional baseball for two seasons with the Fort Worth Cats, managed by former Cincinnati Reds player Wayne Terwilliger and operated by former Lost Angeles Dodger shortstop Maury Wills. He also served as an intern in the public relations department of the Southwest Louisiana Swashbucklers of the National Indoor Football League (NIFL).
Yarbrough earned All-Region selection three consecutive seasons in high school and was selected to the Kentucky High School All-Star game in 2000. He played for American Legion Post 31 Chief Paduke in Paducah in the summer of 2000, and led the team to a national runner-up finish in the American Legion World Series in Alton, Illinois.
In 1999, he traveled with the Roberto Clemente All-Stars of New York to play for a week against Puerto Rican All-Star competition and also attended the Team One Professional Showcase at the University of Notre Dame. As a sophomore in 1998, he was selected to play at the Walt Disney World Wild World of Sports Showcase.
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