ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF softball team has added Tyler Heil to its staff as an assistant coach. He'll be working with the infielders and catchers, focusing on team defense and coaching first base.
"Tyler is a great person," said head coach Cindy Ball-Malone. "Everybody that I've talked to has nothing but great things to say about him not only as a person, but as a learner. He has an eagerness for the game and finds ways to improve it everyday. He'll primarily serve as our infield coach, as well as working with the catchers and team defense."
Heil was an assistant coach at the University of New Mexico for three seasons, accepting that role in August of 2017. Prior to that, Heil was an assistant coach at Santa Barbara City College, where he worked with the infielders and was the team's hitting coach. He doubled as a member of the Vaquero baseball staff while with the softball team.
"Tyler was a coach at New Mexico when I was a coach at Boise State," said Ball-Malone. "He would always call me and pick my brain about certain things. I loved how curious he was; the questions he would ask and the things that were really important to him were exciting to me. He was a pitcher and a shortstop when he was a baseball player, which is pretty exciting in itself. I had been working with our infield for the past two years and I feel like our team deserves a better, more experienced infield coach and he brings that. He's done a good job developing players at New Mexico, so I'm excited to see what he does with our team and our talent.
Heil, a 2005 graduate of Reno High School, played baseball at College of San Mateo from 2006-07. He helped lead the Bulldogs to a 64-20 record, back-to-back conference titles and earned First Team All-Coast honors.
Following his time at San Mateo, Heil earned a scholarship to San Josè State where he earned the Spartans' starting shortstop job in 2008 and went on to help lead the team to a Western Athletic Conference Championship in 2009, going 41-20 in his senior year.
After finishing and receiving his degree in Health Science from San Josè State, he went on to play Independent Professional Baseball for the Gateway Grizzlies of the Frontier League from 2010-11 and the Ottawa Champions of the Can Am League in 2015.
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