ATLANTA — His professional baseball days are long over, but Jeff Pickler, a former University of Tennessee star, is in the Major League Baseball playoffs as a coach.
Pickler, a Southern California native, is a coach for the Cincinnati Reds under manager David Bell. Pickler serves as the Reds’ outfield coach and game-planning coordinator.
Before joining Bell’s staff, Pickler, a career minor leaguer, was an outfield coach for the Minnesota Twins and with the University of Arizona. With the Wildcats, Pickler served under former Florida baseball coach Andy Lopez.
Pickler played for the Volunteers in the late 1990s. He was a consensus All-American and Southeastern Conference Player of the Year in 1998.
He attended Foothill High School in Tustin, California and began his college career at Cypress College. The Chargers are a premiere community college team in California.
While at Cypress, Pickler played for his father, Scott, who retired as one of the winningest coaches in California junior college baseball history.
Jeff’s uncle, Brad, remains as one of the state’s top junior college softball coaches. He has won more than 1,300 games and has coached at Cypress for more than three decades.
With the Chargers, and at UT, Jeff Pickler was teammates with Augie Ojeda, who played for the Chicago Cubs, Minnesota and Arizona.