By Town Crier Staff Report

St. Francis High graduate Mark O’Brien has been named the new head baseball coach at Santa Clara University.

The Mountain View native signed a five-year contract on June 11. O’Brien becomes the Broncos’ 35th head coach in the school’s 119-year baseball history.

“We are thrilled to have Mark O’Brien lead our baseball program,” said Cheryl L. Levick, Santa Clara’s director of athletics, in a press release. “He has deep ties to the Bay Area and is well-known among the local high school and college baseball circles. Mark is a successful recruiter and has an excellent coaching and teaching pedigree.

As a native of the area, Mark is very familiar with Santa Clara University’s athletic tradition and is well-equipped to help us achieve our goals of regaining a position of national prominence on the baseball field.”

O’Brien has been assistant coach and a recruiter coordinator for Stanford University the last three years under head coach Mark Marquess, a Mountain View resident.

O’Brien has been coaching since 1993 when he graduated from San Jose State University, where he played baseball for the Spartans.

He started out as the head coach of the Anchorage Bucs of the Alaska League for one summer, then served as the head assistant baseball coach at Cal Poly from 1995-97. He was also the program’s recruiting coordinator and attracted classes that ranked among the top 40 in the country.

Following his stint at Cal Poly, O’Brien served as head coach at De Anza College in 1998 and helped each of the team’s nine sophomores move on to four-year colleges.

He moved on to Stanford the next year and has helped the Cardinal to three straight appearances in the College World Series. Stanford compiled a 150-47 record the past three years (.761 winning percentage) with O’Brien handling the hitting and infield coaching duties. He also served as the team’s first base coach and was heavily involved in all phases of recruiting.

“I am truly excited and honored to have the opportunity to serve as Santa Clara University’s baseball coach,” O’Brien said in press release. “I grew up watching some great college baseball players and coaches at Buck Shaw Stadium and always felt that Santa Clara University was a place I’d like to be. There is certainly a commitment to success at Santa Clara University and our baseball program will be reflective of that both on the field and off of it. I believe we can win championships at Santa Clara University and our program will focus every ounce of energy in working toward doing exactly that, while representing the institution in a first-class manner.”

O’Brien began his college career as a baseball player at De Anza, where he earned all-Northern California honors and was an all-Alaska League player during the summer of 1991. After earning a scholarship to San Jose State, O’Brien served as a team captain, was the program’s defensive player of the year and a two-time scholar-athlete honoree.