Billy Godwin

Billy Godwin enters his fifth season as the head baseball coach at East Carolina University. After officially taking over the reigns of the Pirate ship on Oct. 28, 2005, Godwin has guided the Pirates to a 161-90 (.641 winning percentage) four-year record which includes wins over nationally-ranked Cal State Fullerton, Houston, Michigan, North Carolina, N.C. State, Oklahoma State, Pepperdine, Rice, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane, UCF and UNC-Wilmington.

In four seasons, Godwin has guided the Pirates to three consecutive NCAA Regional appearances and in 2009 advanced to its first Super Regional since 2004 when they claimed the Greenville Regional title inside Clark-LeClair Stadium. Godwin became just the second ECU coach to record three straight 40-plus win seasons (Keith LeClair, 1999-2002) after posting a league-best 46-20 mark that lead to the 2009 Conference USA regular season crown.

His 2009 squad, which spent 19 consecutive weeks in the national polls, were one of the most prolific offenses in the nation, finishing with a NCAA-best 814 hits and ranking among the national leaders in runs (4th/565), doubles (6th/154), home runs (7th/108), slugging percentage (12th/.546) and batting average (15th/.339), while also leading C-USA (all games) with a .415 on-base percentage, 523 RBI and 1,310 total bases and a .971 fielding percentage. For the third consecutive season the Pirates ranked first in home runs belting a school-record 108 to follow-up their 89 homers in 2008 and 68 in 2007.

Godwin, who was named 2009 C-USA Keith LeClair Coach-of-the-Year, has had 25 players earn All C-USA honors placing 11 on the first-team, nine on the second-team and five on the All-Freshman squad; five have been selected to 16 all-america teams (Jake Smith-2006, Corey Kemp-2008, Seth Maness-2008, Kyle Roller-2009 and Ryan Wood-2009), while Justin Bristow (Newcomer-2008), Chris Heston (Newcomer-2009), Corey Kemp (Player-2008) and Seth Maness (Freshman-2008) were named C-USA Players-of-the-Year.