Jerry Stitt

Jerry Lewis Stitt (born November 29, 1946) is an American former baseball coach, predominately in college baseball. Regarded as one of the top hitting coaches of his era, Stitt spent 18 seasons as an assistant coach to Jerry Kindall at the University of Arizona.

During his time as an assistant he mentored many future Major League Baseball players such as J. T. Snow, Chip Hale, Kenny Lofton and Terry Francona among others, and helped lead the Wildcats to two College World Series championships (1980 and 1986). He then attended the University of Arizona, where he played in the outfield under Hall of Fame coach Frank Sancet. Stitt was a 3-year letterwinner for the Wildcats. During his 1968 senior season, he led Arizona in steals and batting average at .366 to finish with a career .326 batting average for the Wildcats.

Stitt experienced immediate success, helping coach the 1979 Wildcats to the College World Series while also setting several Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10) season batting records. The next season in 1980, Arizona would win their second College World Series championship defeating Hawaii in the title game.

In all, during Stitt's time as an assistant at Arizona the Wildcats would make it to the postseason eight times, advancing to the College World Series four times (1979, 1980, 1985 and 1986) and winning two College World Series championships (1980 and 1986). Stitt's offenses batted a combined .327 over the course of his assistant coaching career and the Wildcats garnered the highest cumulative batting average in the Pac-10 Southern (commonly called the "Six-Pac") during the 1980s.

Head coach (1997–2001) When Kindall retired after 24 seasons at the conclusion of the 1996 season, Stitt was hired as the fifth head coach in modern Wildcats baseball history. Stitt would fill out his staff by hiring Utah Utes head coach Bill Kinneberg as his associate head coach/pitching coach and Victor Solis as his bench coach. Despite having finished with reasonable overall records in three of the past four seasons, the Wildcats had not been competitive in conference play and had fallen behind the rival Arizona State Sun Devils in recruiting and performance.

During his time in Missoula, Stitt mentored several future MLB position players, including Pedro Ciriaco, John Hester, and Gerardo Parra. Stitt also helped coach the Osprey to the 2006 Pioneer League Championship, sweeping the Billings Mustangs and Idaho Falls Chukars to claim the club's second title.

In 2006, Stitt also briefly served as the temporary hitting coach for the Diamondbacks Triple-A-affiliate Tucson Sidewinders. Regular hitting coach Lorenzo Bundy was serving as temporary club manager while Sidewinders manager Chip Hale was called up to coach third base for the Arizona Diamondbacks following Carlos Tosca's foot injury.

Following the hiring of Chip Hale as the head coach of the Arizona Wildcats baseball team in 2022, Stitt attended a number of practices to assist with coaching batting.

Personal life Stitt continues to reside in Tucson, where he has lived most of his life.

Stitt was close friends with his colleague Jerry Kindall, whom Stitt credits with having changed his life and making him into the coach that he became.

In 1973, Stitt earned a master's degree in Education from the University of Arizona and in 1993 earned a doctoral degree in Education Administration, also from the University of Arizona. His dissertation was an argument in favor of ensuring that athletic department goals more closely aligned with the overall educational and social goals of their associated universities.