MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama baseball head coach Mark Calvi announced the addition of Nick Magnifico to the staff as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator.

Magnifico will also serve as the Jaguar hitting coach in addition to coordinating recruiting. He joins the program after serving in the same role in 2019 at Southern Illinois.

"There was a ton of interest in this job," Calvi said. "I had assistant coaches and volunteers from Power Five schools interested. There were head coaches at schools in the Group of Five who were interested, as well as a lot of guys in pro ball reached out; there were over 300 resumes emailed to me. It is a recruiting position first, and it is going to be a guy who heads up the offense as well and will be the point man with the hitters. Nick's track record as a young coach really jumped out at me. I was looking for someone who had Midwest ties and some ties in Texas, and the more I spoke to scouts and other coaches up there, they kept bringing up Nick's name. They said that was the guy I needed to speak with. I then when I spoke with him and brought him in on a visit, it was clear to me that he was the right guy for the job. 

"His work ethic and what the people who worked with him said about him, the scouts in that area and what they said about his work ethic, the coaches he worked under and what they said about him – it just seemed like a logical fit to me. He is blue collar and has done an outstanding job recruiting. Even though he is young, experience wasn't the end-all be-all for me. He has experience, but I just felt as though his personality, work ethic and the things that people who I respect said about him made it an obvious fit for me once he got down here and I spent time with him. He made it clear that he was the guy, for me, for South Alabama and the position."

In Magnifico's only season at SIU, the Salukis led the Missouri Valley Conference in batting average, hits, walks, doubles, on-base percentage and stolen bases. The Salukis ranked among the national leaders in stolen bases (fourth), walks (14th), doubles (16th) and hits (17th). Magnifico also led SIU's recruiting efforts that resulted in the nation's No. 10-ranked junior college recruiting class by Baseball America. 

"I got a call from Coach Calvi saying he had done some research in trying to find a guy from the Midwest," Magnifico said. "He called some scouts and they had given him my name, and he reached out to me. I came down and went through the interview process, and he offered the job and I obviously accepted it. It's been amazing so far. I think the biggest thing is this is a place where we can consistently compete on the national stage, and that's why you take the job – not to come finish second in the Sun Belt. The goal is to come here and go to Omaha, and this is a place that I think you can do it on a consistent basis or at least put yourself to do it on a consistent basis."

Prior to his stint at SIU, Magnifico spent time as an assistant coach at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Central Missouri and Heartland (Ill.) Community College

Magnifico is a native of Lexington, Missouri, and played collegiately at John Wood Community College before transferring to Missouri State where he earned a bachelor's degree in kinesiology in 2011. 

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