July 3, 2007
Orlando, Fla. (www.ucfathletics.com) - UCF Director of Athletics and Executive Vice President Keith Tribble and head baseball coach Jay Bergman announced Tuesday that assistant coach Craig Cozart has been promoted to the position of associate head coach. Cozart, who serves as the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator, just completed his 15th year with the Knights, including spending four seasons as one of the most dominant pitchers in program history.
"Coach Cozart has been here 15 years as a player and a coach, and he has distinguished himself in both areas," said Bergman. "It's been a pleasure to have coached him and worked with him. He has great ties to the community and this is a very well deserved promotion for his hard work and loyalty."
After beginning his coaching career as a UCF student assistant in 1997, Cozart was named an assistant for the 1998 campaign. In 11 years as a coach for the Black and Gold, Cozart's pitchers have combined to go 424-250 for a .629 winning percentage, while holding a 4.28 ERA. They also have made six trips to the NCAA Tournament, and four pitchers were tabbed as Division I All-Americans (Justin Pope, Jason Arnold, Matt Fox, Kyle Bono).
A total of 24 hurlers have been selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, including two first-round picks (Justin Pope in 2001, Matt Fox in 2004) and 10 in the first nine rounds overall. Of those 24 players, only three were drafted coming out of high school.
"I am proud to say that I have spent almost half my life in a UCF uniform," said Cozart. "It has been a great privilege to represent this university and athletics association for all these years. I am so grateful to coach Bergman for his leadership within our program and thanks to Keith Tribble for the continued opportunity. I'm excited about the direction of UCF athletics, and obviously the future is going to be tremendous with all of the new athletic facilities on campus. I'm also happy with the direction our recruiting is going, and I just want to continue to see this program grow towards national prominence."
In helping UCF (27-32) to its first appearance in the Conference USA Championship in 2007, Cozart had the honor of transforming two pitchers from a relatively unknown status into two of the best hurlers in the conference. Junior Jaager Good did not made a start in his first two seasons with the Knights, in large part due to some nagging injuries. Good, though, became the ace of the 2007 staff, going 5-5 with a 3.89 ERA. He capped off his year by pitching seven shutout innings to defeat Houston 1-0 May 24 en route to being voted onto the C-USA All-Tournament Team.
Meanwhile, sophomore Justin Weiss saw action in only four games as a freshman in 2006. Cozart helped Weiss develop a sidearm delivery before 2007 got underway. Weiss' fresh start enabled him to lock down the closer's role early and he went on the post nine saves, which ranked second on UCF's single-season chart. He also was 4-1 with a 1.38 ERA, allowing just five earned runs in 32.2 innings.
"If you look at the history of our program, we haven't always had the highest profile arms coming in out of high school," said Cozart. "But we've been able to develop them into legitimate front-line pitchers. It's always very pleasing to see a player who comes in, cuts his teeth with the program so to speak, and then experience a lot of success when they get their feet underneath them. Obviously Jaager anchored our rotation and that was much needed when we didn't have a clear-cut rotation when the season began. Our biggest area of uncertainty also was who was going to close games for us. Justin far exceeded our expectations and has to be one of the top returning closers in the nation next year."
Along with forming some of the nation's top pitching staffs in the last 11 seasons, Cozart's recruiting abilities have not gone unnoticed either. Of the seven players who signed National Letters of Intent in November 2006, three of them were taken in the MLB draft. In the last three years, 11 of Cozart's recruits were drafted by major league clubs.
Cozart first ventured to UCF as a pitcher from 1993-96. He currently ranks fourth in career wins (24), seventh in appearances (65) and eighth in strikeouts (204). Cozart was a three-time member of the Atlantic Sun All-Academic Team and a second-team All-A-Sun honoree in 1995. One of his best games came at the 1996 NCAA East Regional, where he pitched 8.0 innings in a victory over Bucknell, striking out 11 while surrendering just one run on six hits.
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