Avant new baseball coach at Catholic

Chandler Avant played at Alabama before being drafted in the Major Leagues in 2019 before settling in as a high school coach. He becomes the head coach at Catholic for 2024. (File Photo)

By TIM GAYLE

Chandler Avant didn’t know the first thing about Catholic’s baseball program when athletic director Daniel Veres called him about the coaching vacancy at the school.

But after a conversation with Veres, he thought the job sounded exactly like something he wanted. 

“I enjoy the challenge of competing,” Avant said. “I’m really excited to take on this challenge with Catholic. I think they’ve got a bunch of good pieces, from what I’ve heard, but on the other hand there are other schools around them that have good athletes or as many pieces as they do, so I think it’s going to be a fun and interesting challenge.”

The former University of Alabama standout was announced as the Knights’ new baseball coach on Monday afternoon. 

“I talked to a bunch of people and his name came up with a couple of the people I talked to,” Veres said. “It also happened that my cousin Chandler Taylor played baseball with him at Alabama. This is kind of who we settled on as a target. I wanted a young guy who has the drive, who wants to be a winner. This is what’s important to him.”

Avant has been a winner everywhere he’s been, but his coaching resume isn’t very long. He helped Brad Bohannon’s ballclub in 2021 while he was finishing up work on his degree at the university and served as the head baseball coach at Goshen High in 2022 and 2023  

“There was nothing on (former football coach) Aubrey Blackwell’s resume when we hired him,” Veres observed. “The only thing on (current football coach) Kirk Johnson’s resume was ‘assistant coach.’ Chandler actually has head coaching experience. Baseball is his number one thing. It’s in his blood.”

Avant played on teams at Pike Liberal Arts that competed in Alabama Independent School Association Class AAA championship series every year. The 27-year-old Troy native stepped into a starting role for Mitch Gaspard’s Alabama team as a freshman in 2015, serving as the leadoff batter while alternating between second base and third base, playing error-free ball in Southeastern Conference play.

As a sophomore, now playing shortstop, he was one of the hottest hitters on the team before breaking his ankle midway through the season. In 2017, his 190 assists led the Southeastern Conference. In 2018, as a senior on Brad Bohannon’s team, he led the Crimson Tide with 38 RBIs. 

He was drafted in the 30th round by the New York Mets and spent 2019 in Single-A ball for the Mets before COVID-19 canceled baseball in 2020. When Major League Baseball took over the minor league system and cut out teams and players, Avant was one of those left without a job, so he went back to Alabama to finish on his degree and served as a student assistant for Bohannon.

“At that time, I had two classes that I had to finish, so I got in touch with Bohannon and talked with him and he said if you come back and go to school, you can be a grad assistant that fall,” Avant said. “I did that, and graduated, and then they hired me as a volunteer coach for that spring. I was the first-base coach and helped Jerry Zulli with the hitting and Bohannon with the infielders.”

That experience led Avant to consider a coaching career, but he preferred high school coaching “where there’s not as much recruiting and traveling.” He had some junior college and smaller college offers, then received an offer to become the head baseball coach at nearby Goshen.

“I kind of fell in love with building a program and changing a culture,” Avant said. “It excites me to see things click for guys. I really enjoyed it.”

Avant will also serve as a football assistant for the Knights, primarily “to be with the kids and get to know the kids,” Veres said. “He’ll have a role, but his main role will be getting to know all the guys and getting integrated into our culture.”

Avant, understandably, is eager to get to work with his new team.

“I think it’s going to be better than where I’ve been, just because you’re going up in classification,” Avant said. “But baseball is about throwing strikes, playing clean defense and timely hitting. Nobody’s ever going to just outhit everybody on a consistent basis so if you can throw strikes and play defense, you have a chance to win.”