Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
A Flat(s) Legend
By: Colin Lacy
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
For the last three baseball seasons, I’ve had the unquestionable privilege of calling Georgia Tech Baseball games on the radio for the Georgia Tech Sports Network.
Along with that, I’ve been welcomed into the program by so many people, but especially (now) 32nd year Head Coach Danny Hall.
On March 27th, just before welcoming in Clemson in for a big ACC weekend, Coach Hall announced that 2025 would be his final season leading the Georgia Tech Baseball program and is retiring at the end of the season.
Georgia Tech has been a fixture in the College Baseball fabric for many years and much of that comes from Head Coach Danny Hall that took over the Jackets in 1994 after a six-year stint as the head coach for the Kent State Golden Flash.
Since leading the Ramblin’ Wreck, Coach Hall just locked up his 4th ACC Coach of the Year award that was announced just after Georgia Tech secured the 2025 regular season ACC Championship.
Danny Hall has come from a widely branched coaching tree that begins close to home.
Coach Hall’s dad first instilled the love of sports in him and was his head coach in high school for both baseball and football in Coolville, Ohio.
Hall would then take his talents to Miami (OH) where he played for the (then known as) Redskins (now referred to as RedHawks).
At Miami (Ohio), Hall would learn under the tutelage of legendary member of the Miami (OH) “Cradle of Coaches” Bud Middaugh. After playing for Coach Middaugh, Hall would immediately start his coaching career in 1978 as a graduate assistant under Middaugh at Miami (Ohio). “DH” graduated from Miami (Ohio) for the second time with a masters in 1979 and would make his way to Ann Arbor to be an assistant for the Michigan Wolverines under…you guessed it…Bud Middaugh. Hall spent eight years on staff for Michigan before his first opportunity to lead a program came in 1988 to lead Kent State.
There are so many accolades that you could rattle off under Coach Danny Hall’s name in his 38-year head coaching career.
He moved into the 9th all-time winningest head coach in D1 College Baseball history this year with over 1,400 career wins and is second active only to now South Carolina’s Paul Mainieri who came out of retirement this past offseason.
He has taken Georgia Tech to three appearances in the College World Series in 1994, 2002 and 2006, so the accolades speak for themselves.
That said, there’s one accolade that you won’t find on a stat sheet but is the one that means the most to the skipper. It’s the family environment and culture he has established at Georgia Tech.
Each game you can find Coach Hall’s wife, Mrs. Kara, hosting numerous alumni in the Home Plate Club that are dying to get back to their next game at Mac Nease Baseball Park and Russ Chandler Stadium.
The family of Georgia Tech Baseball is widespread from Major League Baseball former superstars of Nomar Garciaparra, Jason Varitek, or Mark Texeira, to current big-league studs like Chandler Simpson, Kristian Campbell and more.
The Tech Baseball alumni success doesn’t only translate to professional baseball as it includes names like Ben King who graduated from Georgia Tech in 2024 and is now in medical school.
Doctors, lawyers, and financial experts are found frequently coming back to visit the program and the coach that brought them to the Flats. It doesn’t stop there however, because currently, you’ll see the current staff’s family and kids throughout the facility and wanting to be part of the program now and for a long time.
So while, you can look at a Hall of Fame sheet and know that Danny Hall has had an unquestioned impact on not only Georgia Tech Baseball but College Baseball as a whole on the field, rest assured that the impact that 17 has had beyond the diamond is profound, and that’s as much of a reason why the number was retired by Georgia Tech Baseball at the end of the regular season and 17 will forever only have “Hall” on top of it on a Jacket’s Jersey, and hopefully will be worn for the last time in College Baseball’s Heaven…Omaha.
Sophomore Encore
By: Colin Lacy
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
This time a year ago, the name Drew Burress stirred up some buzz on the flats as the Houston County native was just beginning what would turn into one of the most spectacular seasons (let alone freshman years) in Georgia Tech Baseball history.
Last season would turn into so many accolades from ACC Freshman of the Year to Freshman All-American even the D1 Baseball and Perfect Game National Freshman of the Year, but what is Drew Burress beyond the stat sheets?
Start at the beginning of the college career for the former Houston County High standout. Burress was seriously on several teams’ draft boards for around the third or fourth round, but his commitment to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets stood firm unless a first-round call would come.
Coming into the 2024 season, Jackets Head Coach Danny Hall said multiple times through pre-season media availability that there were two things that Drew wasn’t shy about…He wanted to be a first-round pick, and he wanted to graduate from Georgia Tech in three years.
Georgia Tech Baseball has had twelve first round selections over the years, but in the 130 years of Georgia Tech Baseball nobody has ever graduated in three years while playing baseball.
Burress was a highly heralded recruit and was rated as the 6th best player in the nation that made it to a college campus, but the first inning of his career didn’t pan out as everyone expected.
Burress was the leadoff man for the 2024 season, and in his debut at-bat, Drew would strikeout. The Jackets, however, had an impressive bottom of the first inning against Radford and batted around, so Burress came up for a second time in the inning. Alas, Burress would strike out again for the second time in his first inning of college baseball.
As Burress returned to the dugout after the second, Head Coach Danny Hall put his arm around Drew and said, “Don’t worry about it, you’ll homer next time.”
Little did Coach Hall know how right he would be because not only did Burress do just that and launch his first career homerun in the next at-bat, but he would homer in both of the next two at-bats.
As we mentioned, the accolades would roll in for Burress as a freshman in 2024 and so did the records.
Burress set the Georgia Tech freshman homerun record with 25 long balls on the season shattering Jeremy Slayden’s previous record of 18.
He also would become just the twelfth Jacket to win the team triple crown (lead the team in average, home runs, and RBI), and the first since Matt Gonzalez did it in 2016.
Burress also became just the third Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket to be named a National Freshman of the Year by a major publication joining Mark Teixeira and Derek Dietrich.
Finally, while the offensive exploits get so much of the attention, he also rewrote the defensive records by setting the record for outfield assists in a season by gunning down ten assists in the year.
After the heralded freshman campaign, Burress’ hunger for the game and improving his craft has only grown.
In a work ethic like I’ve never seen, especially in someone so young, a lot of it comes from his family.
Drew’s dad, Andy Burress, was a baseball player back in his day after being a 6th round pick and playing in the Reds organization.
After his playing career, Andy founded and continues to run one of the premier travel ball organizations in the country with 5 Star National which has produced an extensive list of draft picks and college signees.
Even with all of the accolades, and in a time where college athletes get the mantra of “only concerned about the money” Burress couldn’t be farther from that.
Through the 2025 preseason, Burress said “I’m not worried about the stat lines if we’re in Omaha (for the College World Series).”
I’m fortunate enough to get to call Drew Burress dazzle every game on the Georgia Tech Sports Network, but the most dazzling part of the young man isn’t the on-field prowess.
The most impressive part of the Georgia Tech’s sophomore is how he carries himself through all the publicity and all the success.
The guy is a grinder, coming to the ballpark every day trying to be as good as he can be while also leading by example and showing a young Georgia Tech team how the best in the game goes about doing it.
I can’t wait to see what this year turns out to be in, what Wiley Ballard called in Burress’ Walk-off Grand Slam call his “sophomore encore.”
