Rolando Garza has an excellent reputation as a pitching coach and he’ll be in his fifthseason in that position with the Waves in 2019.
During his four-year tenure, Garza has coached an All-American (A.J. Puckett in 2016, who had a stretch of 57 1/3 innings without giving up an earned run and 45 2/3 innings without surrendering a run, one of the longest streaks in NCAA history) a WCC Freshman of the Year (Cooper Chandler in 2018) and two WCC Pitchers of the Year (Puckett and Jonathan Pendergast in 2018).
In 2016, the Waves led the WCC with a 3.57 earned-run average. Pepperdine won a WCC regular-season title in 2018.
“I am excited to welcome Rolando to the Pepperdine family,” said Hirtensteiner at the time of Garza's hiring. “Rolando has a wealth of experience and success. He has a great passion for coaching and has shown the ability to create relationships with his pitchers which leads to their development not only as student athletes and baseball players, but builds character and discipline, molding them into men.”
Said Garza at his hiring: “First and foremost, I would like to extend my gratitude to Pepperdine University, Director of Athletics Dr. Steve Potts and head coach Rick Hirtensteiner for this great opportunity, It is a great honor to be a part of a program with such a great history and a winning culture on and off the baseball field. Pepperdine has a high standard of personal beliefs, academics, and athletic excellence, which makes it such a wonderful environment for student-athletes from across the nation.”
A Southern California native, Garza was a 1997 ninth-round draft pick by the Chicago White Sox out of Coachella Valley High School. He was originally drafted as a shortstop and position player, but transitioned to a pitcher the second half of his 10-year minor league career between three organizations.
Following his playing days, Garza spent two years coaching in both the Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Angels organizations.
Garza started his college coaching career at Riverside City College under coaching legend Dennis Rogers, who developed head coaches such as Kentucky’s Gary Henderson, Pepperdine and Baylor’s Steve Rodriguez, UC Santa Barbara’s Andrew Checketts, Brian Green of New Mexico State, Randy Bennet at Cal Poly Pomona and Gary Adcock of Cal Baptist.
Garza spent three seasons (2013-15) as the recruiting coordinator, bringing in dynamic players to help the RCC program reach regional and super regional play two of his three years. In addition, Garza assisted in bringing in three consecutive pre-season Top 25 national recruiting classes (as ranked by Perfect Game) and between 2013-15 Garza’s recruiting classes produced 15 NCAA Division I commits.
During Garza’s three-year stay as pitching coach at RCC, he collaborated with Korean strength coach/skill developer Youngjin Yoon to develop and produce 10 MLB draft picks/free-agent signees. In 2013, under Garza’s tutelage, the Tigers produced the most pitching draft picks in California at the Division I, II, III and NAIA levels, with five pitchers selected. Moreover, the pitching staff was second in the state of California with an ERA of 2.08.
After making two trips to Korea to survey the baseball infrastructure and pitching development, Garza collaborated with Yoon to work on a holistic hybrid pitching philosophy that merges the American power pitching culture, with Southeast Asian baseball developmental strategies.
Garza earned his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from Cal State San Bernardino, graduating in 2010 with honors. His mother and father, Joe and Linda Garza, are retired and reside in Coachella, Calif. Garza has two siblings, Jose and Raymond, as well as a nephew, Jose Garza III.
