The all time winning baseball coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, Jim Wells, was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) on January 10th, 2024. Wells was at the helm of the Tide from 1995-2009, winning 625 games against 322 losses.
With 259 SEC wins Wells also leads the program all-time conference victories. He is tied with the legendary Skip Bertman and Paul Mainieri of LSU with six SEC Tournament Championships. Wells also won two regular season SEC titles. Including his five years at the helm of Northwestern State in Louisiana, Wells overall record was 817-411. In 20 years of coaching he won 40 or more games 12 times, including four seasons of over 50 wins.
A current coach for the Tide, pitching coach Jason Jackson, was also honored at the ABCA annual awards banquet. Jackson was named the National Assistant Coach of the Year for the masterful job he did last season after taking over as interim head coach over the last two months of the season. Jackson led the Tide to host a regional for the first time since 2006 and to Super Regional play for the first time since 2010. Bama won their last three SEC series to grab the 16th national seed and host.
The Tide realistically should have been no lower than an 11 seed. In SEC play last season, Alabama pitchers had the lowest ERA, lowest hits allowed, lowest average against, and least amount of runs allowed in the league. With 593 strikeouts Jackson’s hurlers matched the 1999 team for most K’s in a season. New coach Rob Vaughn kept Jackson on board and names JJ associate head coach as well as pitching coach.
