BY STEVE KRAH
Former major league pitcher and veteran pitching coach Josh Newman is now leading hurlers at Purdue University.
Newman, a graduate of Wheelersburg (Ohio) High School, pitched for Ohio State University (2001-04) — where he earned all-Big Ten Conference honors athletically and academically three times while playing for Buckeyes head coach Bob Todd.
The left-hander spent six seasons in pro baseball, including 14 regular-season games in the majors with the Colorado Rockies (2007 and 2008) and Kansas City Royals (2008). He was on Colorado’s active roster for the 2007 World Series.
Newman has coached at Ohio State (2011-13) for head coach Greg Beals, Marshall (2014-17) for Jeff Waggoner and Penn State (2018-23) for Rob Cooper.
Seven pitchers were selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft during Newman’s time in Happy Valley, including lefty Dante Biasi in the sixth round in 2019. He competed at Double-A in the Royals organization in 2022 and 2023.
Penn State pitchers produced a program-record 503 strikeouts in 2022, the third time in the last four full seasons the Nittany Lions whiffed 400 or more.
Newman, who attended the 2024 American Baseball Coaches Association Convention in Dallas, took over as Purdue pitching coach on the staff of Boilermakers head coach Greg Goff in July 2023.
He joins a leadership group that also includes assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Chris Marx and assistant/hitting coach Seth LaRue plus director of player development John Madia and supervisor of operations Hunter Roberts. Terry Rooney was on the previous pitching coach and is now recruiting coordinator at Louisiana State University.
“I’m walking into an opportunity that has so many positive things going,” says Newman, 41. “I so fortunate that I walked into that environment. By no means am I going to sit here and take all the credit.”
Karly Siegler oversees the student-led analytics team.
“She is a brilliant mind,” says Newman of Siegler. “She is a young lady that is going to go on and do extraordinary things. There’s no doubt about it.
“I’m very fortunate to have her and others on that staff constantly looking at different things and different ways to take data and integrate it, making it functional for our guys.”
Since arriving in West Lafayette with wife Sarah and three children (daughter Ayda and sons Kash and Miller), Newman has been familiarizing himself with his pitchers and getting them to identify and own their strengths and maximize their mobility.
“We can’t teach mechanics until we understand how the body moves,” says Newman. “Then you look at the pitch profile. What do we throw? Do we have any outliers as far as pitch types?”
Newman says that a combination of analytics, data drawn from available technology like TrackMan, Rapsodo and other sources, the baseball staff including Goff, Marx, LaRue and Madia and development team working together can help each pitcher know their strengths and benefit from them.
As pitching coach, Newman helps put the pieces of that puzzle together.
“It is important for you to understand who you’re dealing with what each guy brings to the table from a mentality standpoint,” says Newman. “Every kid’s different. For some, bombarding them with technology and data just doesn’t make sense when I’m trying to get them to understand commanding (their pitches) to certain tools or slowing the game down.”
Purdue’s fall roster includes 18 players listed as pitchers. Among returnees who logged the most mound time for Purdue in 2023 are seniors Jonathan Blackwell (72 1/3 innings), Kyle Iwinski (69 1/3), Aaron Suval (44 2/3), Davis Pratt (42 1/3), Jackson Dannelley (39 1/3), C.J. Backer (37) and Cal Lambert (22 2/3) and junior Carter Doorn (27 1/3). Blackwell and Lambert are left-handers. The others are right-handers.
“Having been at the highest level I understand how hard it is,” says Newman. “I know what goes into chasing a dream.
“But kids today are different than when I played and the game is different. It’s our job to understand what we can take and how we can connect with the guys.
“What we do is something that I cherish. Everything I have has come from the game.”
Purdue is scheduled to open the 2024 season Feb. 16 against Stony Brook in Sugar Land, Texas.
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