Eastern Michigan is going through the process of trying to hire former Texas Tech baseball assistant coach Steve Merriman, an EMU athletics spokesman said on Wednesday, June 24. Tech hired Merriman in July 2025 and he spent one season as the Red Raiders’ director of pitching development.
D1Baseball reported on Tuesday that new EMU coach Trevor Beerman is hiring Merriman to be the Eagles’ pitching coach. Beerman was the team’s interim head coach this season when the Eagles finished 19-34. EMU announced on June 9 he was being promoted to head coach.
Merriman has extensive ties to the area having been the Michigan Wolverines’ hitting coach in 1995 and their pitching coach from 2001-02, from 2011-12 and again from 2021-22. The Eastern Michigan campus in Ypsilanti and the Michigan campus in Ann Arbor are less than 10 miles apart.
Texas Tech finished the season 27-28, its pitchers struggling to a 7.92 earned-run average. They were under the joint leadership of pitching coach Steve Foster and Merriman, both of whom were hired when 11-year Tech pitching coach Matt Gardner was dismissed at the end of the 2025 season.
Gardner spent this year as a pitching coach at the University of Houston. That staff broke up when head coach Todd Whitting was let go. On June 19, Gardner was named head coach at Galveston College.
Tech senior associate athletics director Robert Giovannetti said Merriman resigned last week. Giovannetti said the staff position will be filled, though whoever is hired could have the same or other duties.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: EMU in process of hiring former Texas Tech baseball assistant
Reporting by Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal | USA TODAY Network
