LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington will NOT hold its weekly meeting on Thursday, October 24, at The Mane on Main, Chase Bank building on Main St. The guest speaker is Nick Mingione, University of Kentucky, Head Baseball Coach. WE WILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN WE RESCHEDULE COACH MINGIONE!
This meeting will also be on Zoom. For the Zoom link please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.
If you would like to have lunch, please contact Jenny@rotarylexky.org to reserve your meal.
A lot can happen in seven years. No one knows that better than today’s guest speaker, University of Kentucky Baseball Head Coach Nick Mingione. Coach Mingione last joined us in 2017, fresh off an incredibly successful first season with the Cats, earning 2017 SEC Coach of the Year honors as well as being named the Rawlings National Coach of the Year. He led the Cats to a 43-win season, the most by any first-year coach at UK. The team, originally projected to finish near the bottom of the conference, ended the season with the second-most conference wins in school history.
Fast forward to 2024 and a record-breaking season that earned Mingione his second SEC and National Coach of the awards. UK set a new school record with 46 victories and won the SEC regular season crown for just the second time. Perhaps most significant was the teams first ever appearance in the College World Series.
Mingione’s success with the Kentucky program extends beyond the playing field. Entering 2024, the Cats had a conference-best 233 players earn All-SEC academic honors, including a league-high 34 in 2020 and 39 in 2021. The program has earned the ABCA’s prestigious Team Academic Excellence Award, which requires a cumulative team grade point average of at least 3.00, each of the 2018, 2019, 2020, 202, 2022 and 2023 seasons, the only school in the SEC to accomplish that feat.
Prior to being named UK Baseball Head Coach, Mingione spent eight seasons as an assistant at Mississippi State University. Before his time at Mississippi State, Mingione spent two seasons at UK as an assistant under John Cohen in 2006-07. UK won 33 SEC games in those two seasons, including 2006 when UK claimed its first SEC championship. After the historic regular season, the Wildcats hosted an NCAA Regional for the first time.
Prior to his first stint at Kentucky, Mingione spent three years as an assistant coach at Embry-Riddle University, his alma mater. The Eagles appeared in the NAIA College World Series in each of those seasons, culminating in a runner-up finish in 2005. Mingione also coached at Florida Gulf Coast in 2002, helping lay the foundation for the program before its inaugural season in 2003. He began his coaching career in 2001 at Mariner High School, his alma mater.
Mingione – born in Tarrytown, N.Y., before growing up in Florida – graduated from Embry-Riddle in 2000 with a degree in aerospace studies, as well as a triple minor in business, psychology and humanities. He was also a four-year letterman on the school’s baseball team.
Mingione and his wife, Christen, have one son, Reeves.
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