Washington State expected to hire Nathan Choate as baseball coach

PULLMAN – Washington State is expected to hire Loyola Marymount’s Nathan Choate as the new head coach of the Cougars’ baseball program, according to a report Saturday from Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball.com.

Choate served as LMU’s head coach over the past four seasons, leading the Lions to an 85-103 overall record and a 48-33 mark in West Coast Conference play.

The WCC’s coach of the year in 2023, Choate guided LMU to a 29-24 overall record and a 21-6 finish in the conference last season. The Lions won the WCC regular-season title but went 0-2 at the conference tournament.

A native of Yorba Linda, California, Choate pitched for Cal Poly in the early 2000s and began his coaching career as an assistant at Esperanza High (Anaheim, California) in 2005. He broke into the college ranks in 2007 as an assistant at UC Irvine, then worked with pitchers at UC Riverside (2008-11), Grand Canyon University (2012-16) and San Diego (2017-18) before taking an assistant position at LMU in 2019.

Choate landed his first head-coaching job in June 2019 when LMU asked him to take the helm.

The Lions went 8-8 during Choate’s first year, the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season. LMU finished the 2021 season with a 28-37 overall record and went 13-14 in WCC play to finish sixth in the conference. The Lions also placed sixth in the WCC in 2022 after going 20-34-1 overall and 14-13 against WCC opponents.

Choate, 44, will replace Brian Green, who spent four years at WSU before leaving the program earlier this month to become the head coach at Wichita State.

The Cougars went 29-23 overall and 10-19 in the Pac-12 last season, placing 10th in the conference. Pitching was an issue under Green – especially in 2023 – but WSU’s new skipper specializes in that area of the game.

WSU assistant/recruiting coordinator Jake Valentine will remain on staff under Choate, according to a report from D1Baseballl.