TLU Baseball Coach Rick Heines Announces RESIGNATION

SEGUIN, Texas -- Texas Lutheran Head Baseball Coach Rick Heines announced today that he is stepping down from his position, after leading the Bulldogs for three seasons and being on the Texas Lutheran staff for eleven seasons. He finishes his tenure with an 87-43 record over three seasons.

“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to lead the baseball program at TLU over the last three seasons,” said Heines. “I am also grateful for the trust placed in me for such an important job by President Cottrell, Coach Bill Miller, and Coach Greg Burnett. I hope that after eleven years at TLU and ten full seasons, my contributions have benefited the program and the University. I want to thank my assistant coaches and the players who trusted in the process and the vision. The players make the program successful, and it is the daily interaction with them that is the most fulfilling aspect of the job.

TLU will always hold a place in my heart, and I will be a life-long fan of Bulldogs baseball. However, the time has come for me to seek new challenges elsewhere.”

The 2023 SCAC Coach of the Year, Heines led the Bulldogs to two Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference championships (2021, 2023), an NCAA Regional in 2021, as well as their first outright SCAC regular season championship in 2023. TLU finished with a conference record of 15-3 (.833) in 2021, the second best conference winning percentage in program history, and 17-4 (.810) in 2022 and 2023, tying for the fourth highest conference winning percentages in program history.

“Rick Heines is an outstanding coach and an outstanding person,” said Director of Athletics Bill Miller. “He committed over a decade of his life to TLU and TLU Baseball. He was an excellent assistant and pitching coach for eight years and transitioned to an outstanding head coach, culminating in him being named the SCAC Baseball Coach of the Year in 2023. His three years as head coach were three of the best years that TLU Baseball has ever experienced. Under his direction, the TLU Baseball Team won the 2021 SCAC Tournament Championship and qualified for the NCAA National Championship Baseball Tournament. In 2023 the TLU Baseball team was defeated in the SCAC Tournament Championship Game. During the three years that Coach Heines was the head coach, the TLU Baseball Team qualified for the SCAC Championship every year. We greatly appreciate Coach Heines’ long-term commitment to the TLU Baseball Program and wish him all of the best in his future endeavors. He has left a significant impact on the TLU Baseball Program as well as on the lives of the young men that he coached.”

Texas Lutheran reached the 25-win mark in all three seasons under Heines with a high mark of 30 in 2021. Heines was named SCAC Coach of the Year in his third and final season leading the program, as the Bulldogs won the SCAC regular season title and made their second SCAC Tournament Championship game appearance under Heines. The Bulldogs would win the 2021 SCAC Tournament and win two games in the Wisconsin-Whitewater Regional in 2021. The Bulldogs would make the SCAC Tournament in all three seasons under Heines.

Under Heines, six Bulldogs earned All-West Region honors and one Bulldog, shortstop Joe Jimenez, was named an All-American in 2022, the first All-America honors for Texas Lutheran since 2018.

Texas Lutheran players earned a total of 34 All-SCAC honors over three years with Heines at the helm, including back-to-back-back SCAC Player of the Year honors in 2021 (Tyler Cauley), 2022 (Joe Jimenez), and 2023 (Tyler Post). The Bulldogs also won the SCAC Elite 19 Award, awarded to the student-athlete who has at least a cumulative 3.25 GPA, at least 60 credit hours and earns All-SCAC honors for that particular season, in 2021 with Tyler Cauley taking home the honors. Cauley would also be the lone Academic All-American under Heines, receiving the honors from CoSIDA in 2021.

Texas Lutheran has launched a national search for the next Texas Lutheran baseball coach and will not make any comments on prospective candidates or the search process.