Coaching Staff

Jack Byerley | Assistant Coach

With nearly 1,000 wins as a head coach and a winning percentage of .773, Jack Byerley obviously brings an abundance of experience to Gulf Coast in his first season as an assistant coach. He’s also won an additional 260 games as an assistant coach. Altogether, his teams have won 10 conference or state championships.

Byerley has been head coach at Northwest Florida State College from 2009-2018. The Raiders went 380-158, were Panhandle Conference champs three times and runners-up twice. More than 90 percent of his players moved on to four-year schools, and he coached 57 NJCAA All-Academic players.

He was also head coach at Francis Marion University from 2003-2004, where his teams went 73-26. Both those teams batted .328.

From 1997-2000, Byerley was head coach at Central Alabama Community College. He started the fast-pitch program there, compiling a 205-47 record while winning four straight conference titles. He was Coach of the Year three times, and his teams made three trips to the national tournament.

His first head coaching job was at Robertsdale High School in Alabama. His slow-pitch teams went 211-46 in five years, and he fought to bring fast-pitch to the state. When it did, his two teams went 107-9 and won back-to-back state championships.

Byerley also spent time as an assistant at two SEC schools. At Florida, he helped the Gators reach the 2001 NCAA Tournament, while his Auburn teams made three regional appearances and went 150-92.

He was an assistant at Spring Hill College in Mobile in 2019, where the team won the SIAC championship and made the NCAA regional for the first time. In 2000 and 2001, he was an assistant at Southeastern Louisiana University. The Lions went 29-18 in those years, including the COVID-shortened 2020 season, and beat an SEC team each season.

Byerley has a bachelor’s in health and physical education from South Alabama. He is married to April, also a Gulf Coast assistant coach.

April Byerley | Assistant Coach

April Byerley starts her first season as assistant coach at Gulf Coast with a proven record of teaching and managing pitching staffs. She was pitching coach for the North Georgia team that advanced to the NCAA Division II semifinals last season.

The Nighthawks won the 2022 Peach Belt Conference regular season and conference championships, and the pitching staff finished second in the Peach Belt Conference with a 2.61 ERA. They were one victory short of 50 for the season after winning the Southeast Regional and Super Regional.

She worked with pitchers at Southeastern Louisiana from 2020-21. The Lions had two no-hitters in a season for the first time in 2021, and pitchers set a new mark for saves in a season. The Lions beat Power 5 schools in both seasons.

In 2019, she was a volunteer coach at Spring Hill, where she coached the Southern Intercollegiate Athletics Conference Starting Pitcher of the Year, a First-Team All-SIAC pitcher, and the SIAC Tournament MVP. Spring Hill won the conference championship.

She started her coaching career at Niceville High School, where in seven years the team was Florida runners-up three times and district champs five times.

Byerley began her college playing career at Northwest Florida State, where she was a pitcher/outfielder. She was twice named All-Panhandle Conference. After graduation, she went to play in the SEC at South Carolina. She still holds the Gamecocks record with 32 relief appearances in a season, and she ranks fourth on the all-time list with 53 relief appearances in two seasons.

Byerley has an associate degree from Northwest Florida State and a bachelor’s in experimental psychology from South Carolina. She is married to Jack, also a Gulf Coast assistant coach.