The globetrotting baseball journey of a Latter-day Saint baseball coach

SALT LAKE CITY — It's no surprise that when the Deseret News recently caught up with longtime college/international baseball coach Brent Haring, he was on a bus loaded with ballplayers, traveling to a road game far from his St. George hometown.

A longtime Brigham Young University assistant coach, Haring is wrapping up his first season as head coach at Nicholls State University — a Division I program located along the banks of Bayou Lafourche in southeastern Louisiana.

That's a long drive from his Washington County neighborhood where Haring grew up smacking whiffle ball backyard dingers with his buddies, competing for the Pine View High Panthers and worshipping in his local Latter-day Saint ward.

But baseball's a universal language — and the sport has adopted Haring as a world citizen of sorts.

Haring long ago mastered the baseball coach's art of snoozing on long flights and lonesome bus rides, always packing light and saving just enough space in your carry-on bag for a broken-in baseball glove.

The stamps filling Haring's passport reveal his sojourns across the growing baseball globe. Japan. The Dominican Republic. Samoa. Curacao. And then toss in his frequent baseball stops in dozens of U.S. states and American territories such as Guam and American Samoa.

"Being able to see the world through baseball has been a blessing," observed Haring while navigating a stretch of highway somewhere between Thibodaux, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi.

It's no surprise that a guy who played all nine positions as a college player is versatile enough to adapt and embrace teaching and coaching the evolving game across multiple time zones.

Haring played college ball at Colorado Northwestern Junior College and at Southern Virginia University before embarking on a college coaching career that included stops at Harding University in Arkansas, University of Mount Olive in North Carolina, College of the Ozarks in Missouri, his alma mater of SVU — and in his hometown at what was then Dixie State College.

Haring also spent multiple years at BYU — coordinating recruiting, working with Cougar infielders, overseeing team defense prep and, in 2022, serving as the team's associate head coach.

Then in 2023, Haring was hired as the director of baseball operations at Louisiana State University — one of the premier programs in college baseball. He spent a year in Baton Rouge before accepting his first DI head coaching job at Nicholls State.

'Brent treats people the right way'

BYU head coach Trent Pratt spent more than a decade working in college baseball dugouts with Haring — both at Dixie State and then in Provo.

Pratt's not surprised his friend has survived and thrived in the grueling, uber-competitive, ever-changing college baseball community.

"Brent's a people person," Pratt told the Deseret News. "You're drawn to him, and he's an honest guy. If you're that way long enough, it's going to pay off."

As a baseball coach, Pratt added, Haring brings calmness to the dugout.

"He's been around. … Brent's been around a lot of different coaches, and he's seen a lot of different things. He's able to take others' ideas and morph them into his own."

Most importantly, said Pratt, "Brent treats people the right way. He knows that if you show kids that you love and care for them, they're going to respond."

'The transfer portal giveth — and it taketh away'

Haring's maiden campaign as the Colonels' skipper has been challenging in the baseball-loving Southland Conference. He took over a squad that had qualified for the NCAA regionals in 2024, but then had several players graduate or transfer.

With a record of 16-30, the NSU team could use a bit of luck to qualify for the Southland Conference tournament.

"But it's been a lot of fun — and a huge challenge," reported Haring. "We have a long way to go, and we're trying to get there as quickly as we can."

The Colonels' manager said being at the helm of a DI baseball team demands "thinking things through a bit more thoroughly and making sure that the decisions I'm making are the right decisions for the program now — and for the future.

"I have an obligation to honor the program and its past."

And like every other NCAA coach, Haring is tasked with winning games and operating a clean program while managing the new realities of name, image, likeness and the transfer portal.

"As a head coach, I'm recruiting my own players all the time," he said, noting that today's college baseball scene is "super different" than what he's experienced across most of his career.

Still, Haring's pragmatic. He accepts today's college coaching mantra: "The transfer portal giveth — and it taketh away."

"You either have to adjust or die," he said. "We're trying to adjust and find our niche within the guidelines and how to manage it."

'The foundation of everything in my life'

His tenure on the LSU baseball staff, he added, "has been tremendously beneficial" in the college baseball-crazy corner of the country where he now plies his trade. College sports are simply part of life's rhythm for Haring's new neighbors.

"The people in this community love this program," he said. "It's not uncommon for our little school to have well over 1,000 fans at our games."

But Haring said he's always the same guy — regardless of any particular area's religious demographics. "My faith is the foundation of everything in my life."

The lifelong Latter-day Saint added he can trace God's hand in his professional moves in recent years from Utah to Louisiana.

Haring and his wife, Mary Haring, and their two sons, Tomasi and Nikolao, have also found a welcome landing spot in their new Latter-day Saint congregation.

Read the entire story at Deseret.com.

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