Deemed a rising star in the college baseball coaching ranks, Lane Burroughs wasted little time in putting the Northwestern State baseball program on the same track.
In two years as the Demons skipper, Burroughs has restocked the program from a talent standpoint while piloting it to one of the largest turnaround seasons in Southland Conference history on the field.
His first two Northwestern State recruiting classes served notice that Burroughs, a native of Meridian, Miss., would not waste time restoring the shine to one of the Southland’s most tradition-rich programs.
With a refurbished base of talent, Burroughs and the 2014 Demons more than doubled their win total from 2013, going from 16 victories to 33 and a third-place finish in the league race. Along the way, Adam Oller earned Louisville Slugger All-American honors, becoming another recruiting gem unearthed by Burroughs, who spent four seasons (2009-12) as recruiting coordinator at Mississippi State.
During his time in Starkville, Burroughs played a pivotal role in building the foundation that led to the Bulldogs’ 2013 national runner-up squad.
Burroughs’ and his staff’s efforts earned NSU to be recognized by Baseball America for its “strong” 2014 recruiting class – the first time the Demons coaches had a full year in the recruiting cycle. Baseball America magazine mentioned the likes of Joel Atkinson, C.J. Webster and John Gault among the two-dozen strong NSU newcomers who should make an impact on the 2014 season, and years to come. Northwestern State was one of only three Southland programs to receive high marks from Baseball America for their 2014 classes.
Burroughs spent the 2013 season beginning the rebuilding of a proud program, one that led the Southland Conference in wins since 1990. With an average of nearly 36 victories per season, the Demons captured nine Southland championships in a 14-year span (1991-2005). While adding some late signees to the squad on hand that had struggled through the first two losing seasons since 1990, Burroughs’ first campaign as head man was a tough go with a 16-40 record. The culture was established, but the talent level was simply not sufficient.
Burroughs described Years 1 and 2 of building a program as planting the seeds and watching them grow. Year 3 is for reaping the harvest, something Burroughs said he hopes comes for his Demons in 2015 and beyond.
Burroughs is no stranger to bringing success to the Northwestern State program.
As an assistant, Burroughs has coached eight NCAA Regional tournament teams and helped guide the Demons to the 1998 Southland Conference championship.
Burroughs was a key factor in Mississippi State’s recruiting efforts, which garnered top 25 national ranking in each season he was a Bulldog. Last summer, MSU advanced to the College World Series and surged through its bracket unbeaten to reach the best-of-three championship finals, but fell to UCLA’s hot pitching for the NCAA crown in Omaha.
Led by former Demon coach John Cohen, State won the 2012 Southeastern Conference Tournament championship, in Burroughs’ last season there, and made a second straight NCAA Regional appearance a year after nearly making the 2012 College World Series field, falling in a nail-biting NCAA Super Regional loss at Florida.
During his time at Mississippi State, Burroughs coached 14 Major League Baseball draft picks. Seven went in 2013, including first rounder Hunter Renfroe, a five-tool right-fielder who was chosen in the first round, 13th overall. Six Burroughs-coached or recruited players were named All-Americans.
The Bulldogs had 56 All-SEC Academic Honor Roll selections in his time.
Before joining Cohen in the rebuilding of a once-proud program at Mississippi State, he helped Kansas State emerge as a Big 12 Conference contender, coaching under Brad Hill as the Wildcats reached the Big 12 Conference Tournament champion game in 2008.
In a year at Kansas State, Burroughs coached hitters, outfielders and was in charge of recruiting with 14 players drafted and seven top 10 round selections.
During his seven seasons at Southern Mississippi, the Golden Eagles had five top 10-round draft picks and produced four major league players while winning their first Conference USA title in 2003 and winning 47 games a year later while setting school records for hits, runs and RBI.
Burroughs was on Corky Palmer’s staff at Southern Mississippi from 1999-2007, serving as recruiting coordinator, hitting coach, infield coach and third base coach as the Golden Eagles made their first six NCAA Regional appearances.
When he took over at Northwestern State, Burroughs stepped into a post that has been held by some of the finest coaches in college baseball, and the 18-year coaching veteran received ringing endorsements from former Demon baseball coaches Jim Wells, Dave Van Horn, Rob Childress, Cohen and Mitch Gaspard, among others. He worked under Van Horn and Cohen, and with Childress, in 1997-98 at Northwestern, and arrived back in Natchitoches in 2012 after four years alongside Cohen at Mississippi State.
NSU is regarded as one of the more remarkable “cradle of coaches” in modern day college basketball history.
Wells (an NSU alumnus who was the Demons’ head coach from 1990-94) retired in 2009 as the greatest coach in Alabama history and Gaspard (first an assistant under Wells at NSU in 1993-94) succeeded him at ‘Bama and nearly reached the College World Series two years ago. Van Horn followed Wells in the Demon dugout, and left NSU in December 1997 to take over at Nebraska. He just steered Arkansas into another CWS berth, the fifth of his career along with a Division II national championship. Childress was Van Horn’s pitching coach at NSU (1995-97) and Nebraska, then took over at Texas A&M and has developed a Top 10-ranked program. Cohen, the Demons’ bench boss from 1998-2001 before Gaspard took the helm, later sparked Kentucky to a Southeastern Conference championship before engineering Mississippi State’s return as a college baseball power.
Wells, Van Horn, and Cohen each have won national Coach of the Year honors.
“It’s time to get back to Demon baseball, which means having a program that will challenge for conference titles and postseason berths, and Lane Burroughs’ background and personal qualities make him the person to help achieve that goal,” said NSU Director of Athletics Greg Burke at the press conference announcing his new coach.
“Our goal is to bring Northwestern State back to being the premiere baseball program in the Southland Conference, and in the process prepare young men for unlimited possibilities in their future,” said Burroughs.
At the 2014 Demon Baseball First Pitch Banquet Jan. 31, Burke said: “Lane was absolutely the right hire for Demon baseball. I felt that way when he was hired, and having watched him begin to rebuild the program, in every facet, I’m even more confident.
“Baseball acumen aside, Lane is good for our department and for our community. He is a players’ coach who holds his young men accountable while at the same time creating an encouraging atmosphere in the clubhouse and in the dugout,” said Burke, who gave Cohen and Gaspard their first head coaching jobs. “He’s surrounded himself with dynamic young coaches. The energy level in our program is fantastic. The sense that we’re heading for great success is undeniable, and it’s being done in a first-class manner, the right way.”
“It’s his (Burroughs’) time and he is certainly qualified to do that job,” said Wells, a Northwestern alumnus, at the time Burroughs was hired. “He has SEC experience, has a stable demeanor and is level-headed; he has acquired baseball knowledge, and is well-respected. He specifically has great reputation regionally, which is where Northwestern State will get most of its players.
“The bottom line is this - when his name was mentioned to me as a candidate for the Northwestern State job, I just thought to myself ‘yeah, that sounds right,’ ” said Wells, 192-89 with three Southland titles and two NCAA Regional appearances from 1990-94 at NSU, before guiding Alabama to three CWS appearances including a 1997 national runner-up finish, six SEC Tournament crowns and five regular-season championships from 1995-2009.
Cohen, whose 2012 team posted a cumulative 3.31 grade point average, was effusive in praising his assistant coach. He actively pushed for Burroughs to take over the Demon program.
“He has worked hard for this head coaching opportunity and can handle all aspects of that job at Northwestern State,” said Cohen, 146-84 from 1998-2001 as the Demons’ coach, with SLC titles in 1998 and 2001. “He related to well to our players. I asked him step in for me and give a pre-game speech during a tough stretch for us this past year (2012) and he knocked it out of the park to the point that I had him speak several more times during the season. He is that guy that I can envision speaking to the Kiwanis Club and immediately winning over fans and alumni.”
“He has a fire in his belly that will help him be successful,” said Childress, who helped Van Horn’s NSU teams win Southland titles in 1995 and 1997, and has guided the A&M Aggies to the 2011 CWS and two more NCAA Super Regionals after his Nebraska pitchers helped Van Horn’s Cornhuskers make CWS appearances in 2001 and 2002.
“Lane can 100 percent do that job,” said Gaspard, who led the Demons a 210-138 record, Southland titles in 2002 and 2005, and a 2005 NCAA Regional appearance, and has since added two more NCAA berths in his first three years running the Crimson Tide program. “He is very, very well-respected in baseball circles and he will do things the right way. He is very professional and will represent the program and the school well. He can sit down with anybody from a booster to an administrator to a player and they’re going to walk away saying ‘that’s a classy guy.’”
Burroughs and his wife Susan have three children, Parker Grace (13), Camryn Laine (11) and Thomas Jackson (7). It’s common to see Jackson in a small Demon jersey and cap, with his glove, on the hilltop behind the grandstand playing wiffle ball with his buddies during Demon home games.
Burroughs was a catcher and outfielder and a pre-law major at Mississippi College, where he earned an undergraduate degree in 1995. A year later, he received his master’s in social sciences as a graduate assistant coach and he moved to East Mississippi Community College as an assistant coach in 1997 before getting hired at NSU by Van Horn that summer. When Van Horn left for Nebraska, Burroughs steered the NSU program for a few weeks before Cohen arrived in Natchitoches in January 1998.
Now he’s at the helm again, locking shields to forge a new and even greater tradition of championship success for Northwestern State baseball.
