ABCA Hall of Fame

UConn's Andy Baylock was the 2011 recipient of the ABCA/Wilson Lefty Gomez Award.

A member of the Division of Athletics staff at Conncecticut since 1964, Baylock enters 2015 and his 11th year as the football program's Director of Football Alumni and Community Affairs. Baylock is involved with a number of activities, including the cultivation of relationships with Husky football alumni (players, coaches and support staff) and other various members of the football community. Baylock serves as the team's liaison both to professional scouts and the Connecticut high school coaches, while also assisting the team's departing seniors with career networking, representing UConn at various speaking engagements, and involving current student-athletes with community service projects.

Baylock retired as UConn's head baseball coach in May 2003 after a 24-year run in which he posted a 556-492-8 record, guiding the Huskies to BIG EAST Championships in 1990 and 1994, along with a trio of NCAA tournament berths. Including his tenure as an assistant baseball coach, Baylock compiled an 822-614-11 record over 39 years and, at the time of his retirement, he had personally coached 1,447 of the 2,327 games (62.2 percent) in UConn's baseball history.

His association with UConn began in 1963 as the freshman baseball coach, a part-time position, and Baylock joined the Husky staff on a full-time basis a year later as an assistant football and baseball coach - positions which he held for 15 seasons. Baylock was a part of Husky football teams that won or shared four Yankee Conference titles. He also had a long tenure as UConn's freshman football coach. Baylock was an assistant baseball coach from 1964-79, helping UConn to the College World Series in 1965, 1972 and 1979, before assuming the head coaching reigns in 1980.

Over the years, Baylock has been honored by several organizations. A 1996 ABCA Hall of Fame inductee, Baylock is a member of seven Halls of Fame.

In the spring of 2008, he received awards for his outstanding contribution from both the Connecticut High School Coaches Association and the National Football Foundation's Southeastern Connecticut Chapter.

Baylock also served as the head football coach at East Catholic High School in Manchester from 1962-64 when he became a full-time member of the UConn staff. He played three seasons of professional football, last with the Springfield (Mass.) entry in the Atlantic Coast Professional Football League.

In 1997, Baylock was inducted into the Connecticut High School Coaches Hall of Fame. In 1991, he was awarded the Baseball Service Award by the New York Professional Baseball Committee. He has also been recognized by the University of Connecticut with bestowals of the Albert Jorgensen Athletic Award given by the Alumni Association and the UConn Club Outstanding Contribution Award.

In 1987, Baylock won the Jack Butterfield Award, which is given by the New England Association of College Baseball Coaches for dedication to collegiate baseball. In 2002, the association presented the veteran skipper with the Outstanding Contribution to New England Baseball Award. In 1985, he was awarded the Gold Key from the Connecticut Sportswriters' Alliance for his many years of service to Connecticut athletics.

Baylock was the 1990 New England Coach of the Year and the 1994 ABCA/Diamond Northeast Region Division I Coach of the Year.

Baylock is also very active when it comes to international baseball and is well-known as a distinguished pitching clinician. In October of 1998, Baylock served as a pitching consultant for the Dutch National Team at a training session held in Tucson, Ariz., for the European Championships held in the summer of 1999. He has conducted pitching clinics throughout the country and has had the honor of addressing the baseball players, their families and other dignitaries at the United States Olympic Sports Festival in St. Louis. He was a four-year member of USA Baseball's International Baseball Ambassador Committee, responsible for directing the annual week-long baseball clinic for amateur coaches from around the world. This clinic was held at Team USA's training site in Millington, Tenn.

In the summers of 1985 and 1989, Baylock was the pitching coach for the United States Senior National Team that competed against other national teams in the United States, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, Korea and Canada. He also was pitching coach for the US squad that finished second in the International Harbor Tournament in Taiwan in the fall of 1988. In addition, Baylock also conducted instructional programs in Canada for six summers and coached in the Cape Cod summer league for five seasons.

Baylock served as chairman of the Division I Baseball Committee for the ABCA and was the chair of the Division I All-America Selection Committee. He is a past member of the NCAA Pro-Sport Liaison Committee. Baylock was the President of the BIG EAST Baseball Coaches' Association and a member of the Executive Council of the New England Baseball Coaches' Association.

A 1960 graduate of Central Connecticut State University, Baylock captained the baseball and football teams and received the Gladstone Award, which is the highest award presented to a scholar-athlete at the institution. He was inducted into the Central Connecticut Hall of Fame in 1981.

Baylock then continued his education at the University of Michigan, where he earned his master's degree and served as a graduate assistant baseball coach.

In 1962, Baylock was named head football coach at East Catholic High School in Manchester. He also enjoyed a successful stint as a professional football player with Springfield of the Atlantic Coast Professional Football League. In November of 1998, Baylock was honored with induction into the East Catholic High School Hall of Fame.

Named after the great Lefty Gomez, this annual award is presented to an individual who has distinguished himself among his peers and has contributed significantly to the game of baseball locally, nationally and internationally. The Lefty Gomez Award is sponsored by Wilson Sporting Goods.