Joel Chimelis enters his fourth season as a volunteer assistant coach for the UCF softball program. He works with the infielders and hitters from September through the end of March. Chimelis is also a minor league hitting coach for the Houston Astros organization, where he will be entering his 11th year as a professional baseball hitting coach.
Last season, Chimelis served as the hitting coach for the Single-A Quad City River Bandits, who won the 2013 Midwest League Championship with an 81-57 league record.
Chimelis began coaching professional baseball in 2004 for the Washington Nationals after retiring from playing professionally for 14 seasons all over the world.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Chimelis began his playing career at Eastern District High School in New York, before signing with Howard Junior College in 1985. While at Howard, he was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 18th round, but chose to play for the University of Texas.
While with the Longhorns, he posted a .343 batting average and was an All-Southwest Conference shortstop. For his play that season, the Oakland A[apos]s drafted Chimelis in the 11th round and he went on to play in their minor league system for four seasons through Double-AA for the Huntsville Stars.
After four years with the Stars, Chimelis was traded to the San Francisco Giants where he played at AA, AAA and reached the Major League level, briefly. In 1994, while playing shortstop for the Shreveport Captains in the AA-Texas League, he was selected to the All-Star Team where he led the league in doubles (43) and hit .295 for the season.
In 1996 Chimelis played in the AAA Mexican League with the Oaxaca Warriors and also played briefly for the New York Mets AAA team, the Norfolk Tides, where he hit .382 in 25 games.
In 1997 Chimelis played professionally in Taiwan and spent 1998 in the Korean Professional Baseball League. From 1999-2002 he, once again, played in the AAA Mexican League for the Laredo Owls, where he hit over .300 in each of his three seasons and posted 30, 19 and 15 homerun records, respectively.
Chimelis has been married for 19 years to his wife Carmen. They are proud parents of three daughters, Adriana (19), Nichole (16) and Gabriela (13) and reside in Orlando.