Mike Birkbeck  |  Associate Head Coach

Considered by many as the best pitching coach in the country, Mike Birkbeck, a former major league pitcher, has been the associate head coach at Kent State since July 2004.

Prior to coming to Kent State, Birkbeck spent 14 years playing professionally.  His last 10 seasons were spent at the AAA or major league level.  He also spent parts of two seasons playing in the Japanese major leagues with the Yokohama Baystars in Yokohama, Japan.

The Golden Flashes have now won ten MAC regular season titles, ten MAC tournament crowns and have appeared in ten NCAA Regional Tournaments during Birkbeck’s tenure, including 17 championships in the last 21 seasons.  In Birkbeck's 24 seasons, KSU has won 845 games, an average of 36 wins per year and have now won 30 or more games in 22 consecutive full seasons.  The top five team strikeout totals for a single season ever at KSU have all come under Birkbeck’s watch (2012, 2018, 2011, 2009 and 2017).  His staffs have also set two of the lowest season ERAs in school history.

Birkbeck has worked with 53 student-athletes who have been drafted or signed into professional baseball, including 2011 First Round Draftee Andrew Chafin and 2016 fellow first rounder and National Player and Pitcher of the Year Eric Lauer.  Lauer also set the season's lowest ERA in the nation that season at 0.69, the lowest in over 30 years across Division I baseball. Eight of his former hurlers, Matt Guerrier ’99 (Twins), John VanBenschoten ‘01 (Pirates), Dirk Hayhurst ’03 (Padres), Andy Sonnanstine ’04 (Devil Rays), Chris Carpenter ’08 (Cubs), Chafin '11 (Diamondbacks),  Lauer '16 (Padres), and Taylor Williams '17 (Brewers) have all appeared in the major leagues.  In addition, he has mentored 40 All-MAC, 18 All-MAC Tournament, 11 All-Region and 13 All-American honorees. 

Several Golden Flash pitchers have broken single-season or career pitching records under his guidance.  2007 saw RHP Jason Seelman author the best single-season ERA in Kent history, allowing three earned runs in 33 innings for a 0.82 ERA. Other notable record setting performances include:  Justin Gill ‘11, career appearances (97); Kyle McMillen ‘11, who smashed the single-season and MAC single-season saves record (18), Dan Adams 2000 career saves mark (29) and single season appearances (31); and Andy Sonnanstine ‘04, single-season wins (11) and single-season innings pitched (125) in 2004.  In addition, the 2012 pitching staff established a new school record for strikeouts with 543 and senior LHP David Starn eclipsed the single-season strikeout mark with 127 and he tied the single-season wins record (11) along with sophomore RHP Tyler Skulina (11).  Starn also established new career records in wins (29), innings pitched (341) and strikeouts (347) supplanting former Flash major leaguer Dirk Hayhurst ‘03 in the latter two categories. Lauer’s final season in 2016 broke the single-season ERA record as he landed second behind Starn in career strikeouts (292). In 2018, Joey Murray broke Starn's single-season strikeout record with 141, while also moving into fourth in career strikeouts (308).

Nearly all who have learned from Birkbeck will say their greatest lessons learned came not from pitching mechanics but from the larger lessons Birkbeck has taught them.  As a coach who understands and values personal relationships, he is a great mentor in the mental part of the game and also in teaching lessons that transcend baseball into life.

Birkbeck assists in the evaluation and recruitment of pitchers and is directly responsible for the pitching staff’s off-season winter individual throwing workout programs.  He also coordinates the Flashes’ winter and summer youth pitching camps and assists with the throwing portions of all other camps.

Coach Birkbeck is a member of the Orrville Sports Hall of Fame, University of Akron Sports Hall of Fame, Wayne County Sports Hall of Fame, the Richmond Braves 10th anniversary All-Diamond Team and Richmond’s All-Century Team.  In summer 2001 he also was inducted into the Greater Akron Baseball Hall of Fame and the Summit County Sports Hall of Fame. In 2012 he was handed the prestigious ABCA/Baseball America Division I National Assistant Coach of the Year award. In January 2016 he was inducted into the Greater Canton Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame.

Birkbeck, a 1985 graduate of Akron with a degree in Business Administration/Marketing, was a four-year letter winner, two-time captain, the 1982 Ohio Valley Conference MVP and an All-American with the Zips.  He still holds the Akron career victories record with 24 wins and is also a member of the Ohio Valley Conference’s All-Time team.

A native of Orrville, Ohio, Birkbeck, his wife Suzanne and son John, live in Plain Township, Canton, Ohio.  John completed his career as a right-handed pitcher for the Golden Flashes in 2015 and is currently working in the baseball industry.