Roadrunner Baseball Names Crowder Assistant Coach

By GARY STALLARD

AC Athletics

The Angelina College Roadrunner baseball team has named Cody Crowder as assistant coach to work with new head coach Jon Phillips.

Crowder made his name at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, both as a coach and a player. Over the past four years, Crowder served as Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator for the Gents, playing a role in the progam’s Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) titles in 2022 and in 2024. In addition, Crowder’s resume includes having recruited the SCAC Freshman of the Year in 2023 and 2024; an All-American; five All-Region players; and a Pitcher of the Year recipient.

Prior to his coaching career, Crowder established himself as an elite player for the Gent program, finishing his SCAC career with an All-American honor, two 1^st Team All-Conference honors, a pair of 2^nd Team All-Conference nods and two All-Region honors.

Crowder still holds several individual records at Centenary, including hits, extra-base hits, doubles, triples, runs scored, walks, stolen bases, total bases, games played, at-bats and sacrifice flies.

As he begins his new role with the Roadrunners, said his expectations of future players goes beyond what happens in the next year or two.

“We want to bring in good players, but more importantly, good people,” Crowder said. “We want guys who want to play at the next level and possibly have long careers in baseball. We want players who want to be part of something special here and hopefully make some noise in the conference tournament.”

Crowder, who spent his high school career at Shepherd High School, has ties to East Texas: His wife – the former Hannah Scoggin – was a standout softball player at Diboll High School who also spent a season with Angelina College’s Lady Roadrunners before moving on to Northwestern State Oklahoma University.

Crowder describes his approach to coaching as team-focused rather than on individual accomplishments.

“Having a team-first mentality is very important,” Crowder said. “I’ve been telling the guys here you can’t put the chicken before the egg. We’ve got to go out and win some ball games first, and the recruiting and helping the guys move onto other places will come after that. We need to be selfless and worry about this team first.

“We also need to keep baseball simple,” Crowder added. “Baseball’s hard enough as it is. Just go be an athlete and keep working hard to get better.”

As for any incoming players, Crowder presented this message:

“I want him to know he’s going to be part of something special,” Crowder said. “There are a lot of eyes on this program, and not only will it be a great experience as far as recruiting, but we also want to make sure it’s a great experience for wherever he goes next.

“We’re going to do this thing right,” Crowder said. “We want guys to play the game the right way while making them better players, and I think it’s something that they can look forward to experiencing.”

The email address for AC’s Sports Information Director is gstallard@angelina.edu.