NATCHITOCHES – Wherever Dave Van Horn has traveled in his nearly four decades as head coach in college baseball, victories have followed.
 
That includes a three-year stint at Northwestern State where Van Horn led the Demons to victories in 62 percent of their games while capturing a Southland Conference regular-season championship and a Louisiana Division championship.
 
The 106 victories Van Horn accumulated in Natchitoches are part of a career that will see Van Horn enter the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2027. Van Horn and six other coaches will be inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame on Jan. 8, 2027, at the 83^rd annual ABCA Convention in Chicago.
 
Spending the 1995-97 seasons at Northwestern allowed Van Horn to break into the Division I coaching realm after five seasons as the head coach at Texarkana Community College and one season at Central Misouri State where he won the 1994 Division II national championship.
 
"Being able to coach at Northwestern State gave me the opportunity to jump both feet in and try to coach at the highest level of college baseball," Van Horn said. "The Southland isn't the biggest league, but it is definitely a league where you play good competition. It teaches you how to recruit – locally and nationally. You get some midweek games against teams like LSU and Mississippi State and some of those types of teams. It was definitely a training ground that gave me the opportunity to sink or swim. Fortunately, I hired a lot of good people, had a lot of good players and it worked out."
 
Van Horn's credentials were clear when he arrived in Natchitoches. In nearly three decades since leaving Northwestern for Nebraska, Van Horn has run his victory total to 1,518 – tops among active Division I head coaches, earned three SEC Coach of the Year honors and taken Arkansas to eight College World Series appearances, including a 2018 national runner-up finish.
 
Prior to his time at Arkansas, Van Horn took Nebraska to four NCAA Regionals and two College World Series berths.

In Van Horn's first season, the Demons posted a 37-15 record and captured the Southland regular-season title, the third straight for the program. He added a Louisiana Division championship in 1997.
 
The first two titles of that run came under Jim Wells, who was inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame in 2024. Van Horn and Wells found themselves battling it out in the SEC with Wells skippering Alabama and Van Horn in his current position as Arkansas' head coach.
 
"When we played Alabama in the early hears of being here at Arkansas, coach Wells and I would get together and, from time to time, talk about the days in Natchitoches," Van Horn said. "We talked about how we enjoyed it. It was tough, and you had to do a lot more than coach. You were raising money, helping with the field. There's a lot coaches at that level have to do."
 
Van Horn credited his support system for allowing him to have the success he has enjoyed at all levels of college baseball.
 
"I always say, 'we,' because I feel like it wasn't just me, myself and the other coaches," Van Horn said. "It's a family affair. You know, everyone's involved. You're away from home, coaching and recruiting and traveling, and you've got to have good backing from your family. I've had a tremendous wife, who's been such a good baseball wife."