< Previous 9 2021 ROS TER 36 JACK SOKOL RHP / 6’4” / 192 lbs Freshman / New Albany, OH 34 JOHN SAMUEL SHENKER IF / 6’3” / 248 lbs RS Junior / Albany, GA 44 JACK OWEN LHP / 6’2” / 204 lbs Senior / Aliso Viejo, CA 47 GARRETT FARQUHAR IF / 5’11” / 185 lbs Senior / Hoover, AL 45 JOSEPH GONZALEZ RHP / 6’4” / 215 lbs Freshman / Humacao, P.R. 40 BLAKE BURKHALTER RHP / 6’0” / 185 lbs Sophomore / Dothan, AL 43 RICHARD FITTS RHP / 6’3” / 215 lbs Junior / Helena, AL 41 STEVEN WILLIAMS OF / 6’3” / 216 lbs Senior / Albany, GA CLICK EACH PHOTO FOR FULL BIO10 B ASEB ALL S T AFF KARL NONEMAKER Assistant Coach TIM HUDSON Volunteer Assistant and Pitching Coach GABE GROSS Assistant Coach GREG DRYE Director of Operations BLAKE LOGAN Director of Player Development CHRIS JOYNER Strength and Conditioning Coach CLICK EACH PHOTO FOR FULL BIO 13 C O A CH BUT CH THOMPSON Butch Thompson was named Auburn’s head baseball coach on October 22, 2015 and enters his sixth season with the Tigers in 2021. Thompson, who spent three seasons as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Auburn from 2006-08, returned to the Plains after seven seasons at Mississippi State as both associate head coach and pitching coach from 2009-15. He has also made stops as an assistant coach at Georgia (2002-05), Birmingham Southern (1994-96, 1998-2001) and Huntingdon College (1993) and was the head coach at Jefferson State Community College in 1997. A native of Amory, Mississippi, Thompson has coached 30 Division I All-Americans and 39 all-conference performers. He has seen 16 of his former pitchers make their Major League Baseball debuts, including 10 since 2014. Thompson has also turned 32 pitchers who went undrafted out of high school into MLB draft picks, including the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft, Casey Mize. With Tanner Burns also going as a supplemental first round pick in 2020, Auburn became one of four programs with a pair of pitchers drafted in the first round in the last three years. In 28 years of coaching at the collegiate level, including 19 in the Southeastern Conference, Thompson has coached eight College World Series participants, most recently leading the Tigers to the program’s first trip to the College World Series in 22 years in 2019. Thompson has also coached one national champion and a national runner-up, won nine conference championships and made 17 postseason appearances. He has also served as an assistant under three National Coach of the Year recipients. Thompson earned a Bachelor’s Degree in History at Birmingham Southern in 1992 and completed a Master’s Degree in Sports Administration at UAB in 1996. He is married to the former Robin Ashe of Birmingham, Ala., and they are the parents of three daughters - Anna, Olivia and Madelyn Gail. BUTCH THOMPSON Head Coach14 PLA YER DEVEL OPMENT CENTER AUBURN BASEBALL OPENS PLAYER DEVELOPMENT CENTER Auburn baseball coach Butch Thompson worked through the contacts on his phone, gratefully reaching out to the people whose names are on a plaque on the outside wall of Auburn baseball’s new Player Development Center. “It’s special,” he said. “I love looking at that plaque.” Thompson and Jon Wilson from Tigers Unlimited arranged a virtual tour of the facility, a way to say thank you to the 64 individuals and families whose generosity made it possible. “You’re talking about families in this community, people who have played here,” said Thompson, in his sixth season. “A lot of people who love Auburn baseball put all their chips on the table for this development center. “For us to really get this thing moving, it took people who were willing to invest on the front end. This development center will always be one of the most special things that happens in my tenure because these were people who not only said, ‘We need to do this, we need to do that,’ these are people who stepped up to the plate and put a ball in play, and it’s really neat for our players.” Located beyond Plainsman Park’s right field wall facing Donahue Drive, the 7,100-square-foot facility opened in January when student-athletes returned from the holidays to begin preparing for the 2021 season, doubling the capacity available to Auburn’s hitters. “You go from two to four batting cages. You go to technology like we’ve never seen before,” Thompson said of the Josh Donaldson Hitting Lab. “Now we can tell you how hard the ball comes off the bat, and we can estimate how far the ball traveled. The technology is incredible.” Pitchers benefit as well. On a cold February day, pitching coach Tim Hudson oversaw indoor bullpen sessions. With the swipe of a card, student-athletes can access the facility, a game-changing opportunity for their development. “It’s not just that you doubled the bandwidth of guys being able to get in the facility,” Thompson said. “It’s so inviting for them to come, in practice, out of practice, on their own. The real breakthroughs, the real discoveries, the real movements happen on your own. It’s not always just in that team practice setting.” The previous location of Auburn’s batting cages, behind the first base dugout, now houses the baseball program’s weight room. “It was tight for cages, and it’s a pretty large space for a baseball-only weight room, so we get the benefit of that as well,” Thompson said. “You can go right from the development center and get to the weight room, or vice versa. It just becomes more efficient.” The cutting edge technology that allows pitching machines to duplicate the spin rate of upcoming pitchers to mimic the ball flight Auburn’s hitters will face. The old-school equation that two plus two equals four, doubling the number of potential practice swings. To sum it up, Thompson offers what he calls a “Yogi-ism”: “I think we’ll hit more because we hit more.” As impressive as the new facility is, the potential exists for a second phase that would only enhance it. The structural steel system provides capacity for future rooftop premium seating and connectivity to the main concourse. For now, the priority is the 2021 season that opens Friday, February 19 vs. Presbyterian. When Thompson leads the Tigers back to Omaha, gratitude will compel him to pause at that plaque on the brick wall to again thank the 64 Auburn baseball supporters who helped make it happen. “We deemed this as being the most important thing we needed to do first in our program,” Thompson said. “It’s going to be invaluable for us moving forward.” 17 A UBURN IN THE ML B AUBURN IN THENext >