Coaching Spotlight: Tyler Fitzgerald
- Natalie Zona
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
From Division III college teams to the MLB, Tyler Fitzgerald has been everywhere within the baseball world and has no shortage of experience. He now comes to Dean Baseball in hopes to make a dent in the GNAC.
In August of 2025, Fitzgerald was named Head Coach of the Dean Baseball team. After a successful career of his own, he comes to Dean with a lot of coaching experience. He grew up playing baseball himself as a pitcher and then ended up at Salem State to start his collegiate career. After one year, he moved on to Keene State where he played for three years and was a captain in his senior year.
During that time, COVID was changing the landscape of everyday life, so he was able to use an extra year of eligibility at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), a highly touted Division II school for baseball. When Fitzgerald got onto campus, SNHU was on a streak of going to three straight college world series.
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He said, “I didn’t really have a big role on the field there, but I was able to get a jersey and be a part of a cool World Series run.”
He also mentioned being able to play under Scott Loiseau, the head coach at the time, who is now the Associate Baseball Head Coach at Duke University. Loiseau had a big impact on his playing and coaching career.
The day that SNHU got eliminated in the College World Series, Fitzgerald got a call from the MLB’s San Francisco Giants. A chance to work for a professional team was on the line, so he was hired and flew out the next day.
After one season, he came to the realization that he wanted to get back into college baseball, so he went back to his alma mater, Keene State.
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“I had the chance to turn around a program that didn’t really win a lot when I was there as a player. So, I got to go to Keene State with a whole new coaching staff and bring in around 20 freshmen as a part of a massive rebuild.”
With this rebuild, the team doubled their win total in the first two years. In three years, the team had a Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, an All American, and multiple All Conference players. Fitzgerald completely changed the culture of the program.
Following his success at Keene, he returned to his other alma mater, SNHU, as a recruiting coordinator and pitching coach. Here, he recruited another large class and got them to another World Series, this time as a coach. He had another realization after coaching Division II for the year: Division I was his next goal. So, he became a pitching coach at UMass Lowell.
“I really enjoyed my time working with the staff there. Then I just, I really knew at that point after experiencing every level, I think being a D3 head coach is really what I wanted. I missed the conversations about recruiting players, how much the school costs, if players have the chance to play right away.”
As for why he’s at Dean College now? He’s always wanted to lead a rebuild. The time at Keene State taught him to build something basically from the ground up. If there was the chance to take over a program that’s struggled, that would be something he’d jump on.
He has had high praise for what he’s seen so far in Dean’s fall season and their preseason.
“They don’t complain about anything, they work super hard. It’s very refreshing for me to be at this level, it's very team focused and they’ve accepted new challenges.”
The goals for the season are to break the program record for wins and to make a run in the conference tournament. Fitzgerald sees next year as a bad year if they don’t win a few games in the conference tournament or win it outright. The goal is to win championships.
After a trip to Myrtle Beach, Dean Baseball arrives back to Franklin with an impressive 7-2 record. Now that spring training is over, they will take on Mass Maritime on March 18th at 3:30 PM in Buzzards Bay.
