Jason Hawkins enters his second collegiate head coaching position after acquiring more than 14 years of coaching experience at both the high school and collegiate levels.

The Oregon native and son of a long-time high school coach, played for Western Oregon University after a high school career at West Albany HS. Hawkins began his coaching career while still in college, becoming the head coach at Springfield HS in Springfield, OR after graduating in 1995. He went on to obtain his master’s in Education from Pacific University in 1998 while coaching high school ball in North Eugene and Hillsboro.

In 1999 Hawkins took a position as head coach and English teacher at Desert Hot Springs High School near Palm Springs, CA. Over the last eight years he has also served as the Department Chair and ELL Curriculum Coach in the Palm Spring Unified School District. He was the head coach at Desert Hot Springs HS for five seasons before joining the collegiate coaching scene as an infield and hitting coach and recruiting coordinator at the University of Redlands.

During his four years at Redlands, Hawkins helped coach the nationally ranked NCAA Division III Bulldogs to a 2006 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship, the program’s first in 15 years. During the past four years, the team posted a 104-57 record, tops in SCIAC.

Education:  Earned a BS in Health/Physical Education from Western Oregon University in 2005.  Rise then went on to Pacific University to earn an MAT in education.   

Background: Born and raised in Springfield, Oregon, Rise attended Springfield High School. He competed in Baseball, Basketball, and Football during all four of his years at SHS. 

During his freshman year in baseball, Rise had the opportunity to play for current Oxy head baseball coach Jason Hawkins. As a junior, Rise helped lead his team to a top 5 finish in state and a league championship as a senior.  After graduating high school he played and coached for College of the Siskiyous before earning his degrees.  Prior to moving on to Occidental, Rise served as a Physical Education instructor at Oak Hill School in Eugene, Oregon.

In his first year serving as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, Rise helped introduce a new mentality to many facets of the baseball program.  Rise manages a defense which saw both of its middle infielders (Jason Jebbia and Dan Kelly) earn All-Conference accolades, with Jebbia earning All-Region recognition as a shortstop. With only one full-time starter from the previous year, the defense was able to rank in the top 25 nationally a year ago in terms of double plays turned per game.

Rise also took over recruiting responsibilities in his first year.  With the long time tradition Occidental baseball has had, the goal is to bring in proven talent that can help return the program to its championship days.  In the first recruiting class under the direction of Rise, Oxy was able to land three state champions from the state of California, a Division 1 transfer from USF, and three other post season participants from the Spring of 2009.  In addition, the baseball team has added three Junior College transfers to the roster in the past 16 months.

This season Rise will take over the duties of coaching the Oxy shortgame and baserunning while continuing to handle the defense.  The Tigers will try to improve on their 136 stolen bases from a year ago, which ranked them 5th in the country.   

Education:  After graduating from Santa Cruz High School, Luke moved to Southern California to work on his undergraduate degree at the University of Redlands.  After earning his BA in Studio Art from Redlands in 2008, Luke started work on both Multiple and Single Subject Teaching Credentials at the University of Redlands while taking the assistant coaching position at Occidental College.

Background:  Born in Santa Rosa, CA, Luke grew up in Santa Cruz where he played baseball, football and wrestled at Santa Cruz High School.  At SCHS Luke was a 2nd Team All League linebacker and tight end his senior year, a two time league champion in wrestling (172 and 189 lbs) and played on three Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League Championship teams in baseball. 

Education:   From 1998-2002, Adam attended Woodland Christian High School in Woodland, CA. After graduation, Adam went on to earn his Associate’s Degree in General Education from College of the Siskiyous in Weed, CA. In the fall of 2004, he transferred to California State University, Sacramento where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in History in 2007. Currently, Adam is attending National University for both a multiple and a single subject teaching credential.

Background:   

Adam was born and raised in Woodland, CA. He attended Woodland Christian High School where he played four years of baseball.  At Woodland Christian, Adam was named 1^st Team All-League his junior and senior years and named league MVP his senior year. Adam went on to pitch for two years at College of the Siskiyous.

For the 2009 baseball season, Adam was the head freshman baseball coach at Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, CA. He was also a co-head coach for the Rio Americano High School baseball summer program.

Adam is entering his second season as Oxy’s pitching coach.  During his first season, Adam helped the Oxy pitching staff lower its team ERA from 6.90 to 5.81.  Opponents batting fell from .323 to .295. Plus, Oxy pitchers allowed 49 fewer earned runs.  Coach Jason Hawkins has given Adam the opportunity to work with the pitching staff, as wells as, giving him further duties in recruiting.  Adam will take over  Mid-West recruiting responsibilities and will look to help the staff bring in quality student athletes.