Staten Island Advance Article
Staten Island, NY – Jim Carone has been tabbed to be the 13th Wagner baseball coach as announced by athletic director Walt Hameline. Carone arrives on Grymes Hill following a three-year stint as the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Villanova.
“We are real excited to announce the hiring of Jim,” said Hameline. “He has outstanding credentials, having been a full-time assistant coach over the last six years, highlighted by a three-year stint at Villanova.”
No stranger to Seahawk nation, Carone was the pitching coach of the 2006 Wagner team that featured two-time American League (AL) All-Star and current Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Andrew Bailey as well as Washington Nationals farmhand Joe Testa and former Baltimore Orioles reliever Andrew Huebner.
“He’s a baseball guy that knows the game very well and enjoys being on the field and around the guys,” said Bailey, a 2006 Wagner College alum. “He already made a name for himself in his first stop at Wagner and will make a great college head coach. I’m excited that he landed back at the college. I can only see the program to continue to sail in the right direction with the addition of coach Carone.”
Over the last three seasons at Villanova, Carone helped revitalize the pitching staff while spearheading the Wildcats’ nationwide recruiting efforts. During his time in Pennsylvania, three of his pitching pupils were selected by Major League teams, highlighted by right-handed pitcher Kyle McMyne, who was selected in the fourth round by the Cincinnati Reds in last summer’s annual Major League Baseball (MLB) First-Year Player Draft.
In 2010, Carone's pitching unit posted the school’s lowest earned run average (ERA) in over a decade while ranking 32nd nationally at 4.37, despite the fact that 10 of the squad’s 14 hurlers were either freshmen or sophomores. Additionally, two of the upperclassmen, Mike Francisco and Brian Streilein were each selected in the 2010 MLB First-Year Player Draft.
Over his three years with the Wildcats, he also served as the school’s Baseball Camp Director while assisting with fundraising, academics and alumni relations.
“Wagner is getting one of the top young coaches in college baseball,” said Villanova head baseball coach Joe Godri. “On behalf of the entire Villanova Baseball family and everyone that has worked with Jim here I can say that we are all ecstatic that Jim is being given the opportunity to begin his head coaching career. There is no question in my mind that Jim is the right person to move the program forward.”
Prior to working with the Wildcats, Carone had two successful seasons with Rider, capped by a storybook season that saw the Broncs win the 2008 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Championship after entering the four-team playoff field as the fourth seed. During their run to the MAAC Title, his pitching staff yielded an average of less than three runs per game over the three victories in helping the Broncs to the school’s first NCAA Regional berth in 14 years. Three of his pitchers were selected in the MLB Draft, including James Hayes, who Carone helped craft into arguably the school’s most successful relief pitcher.
"Being named the head coach of a Division I program is the summit for most coaches when they begin their coaching careers,” said Rider head coach Barry Davis. “Jim put himself on this path immediately after his playing career, paying his dues at various levels. He is a lifelong learner and will continue to grow as the leader of the Wagner College baseball program and is a solid person who deserves this opportunity."
Carone garnered his first Division I coaching job at Wagner under former coach Joe Litterio, who recently left Wagner to join the Rutgers coaching staff, during the 2006 season, helping the Seahawks to a then school-record 15 Northeast Conference (NEC) victories and a spot in the conference tournament. All three members of the Seahawks weekend rotation (Bailey, Testa, Huebner) during his lone season on Grymes Hill would go to the professional ranks and were aided in their development by Carone, who helped the pitching unit record a school-record 342 strikeouts.
However the top moment of the year came in the season’s final week as the Green & White won three-straight by a combined total of just four runs while holding Monmouth, the league’s top offensive team to a total of just seven runs, in earning an unlikely playoff berth. Wagner’s three-straight wins knocked the perennially successful Hawks out of the NEC Playoffs for the only time in the last 14 years.
“Jimmy has a lot of experience in the NEC Conference as a player and a coach,” said former Wagner coach Joe Litterio. “I wish him the best of luck and know he will do a great job.”
No stranger to NEC as a player, Carone prepped for Monmouth under legendary skipper Dean Ehehalt as a student-athlete, earning four letters from 2000-2003. On the mound, he collected 17 victories while posting a 3.67 ERA over 245 innings. The highlight of his career came as a junior in 2002, when the crafty righthander went 10-3 with seven complete games and a 2.21 ERA en route to garnering NEC Pitcher of the Year accolades.
“I am really happy for Jimmy,” said Ehehalt. “He has been successful at every stop as an assistant and now he gets an opportunity to lead his own program. I am certain he will do a great job. He is a quality person in addition to being a very good baseball person.”
Carone got his start in coaching at then Division II NJIT in 2004 before also serving as a pitching coach at Stevens Institute of Technology in 2005.