Craig Young: Middle Georgia College
Young was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2022.
Scott Sims still considers Craig Young a great friend.
But that didn’t stop the former South Georgia State College coach from wanting to beat him when the two faced each other in junior college baseball play.
“All of the coaches in the league got along very well,” said Sims, a Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Famer. “Craig was a guy you liked to try to beat, but I didn’t have very good success against him.”
Sims watched his good friend join him in the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame when Young was inducted as part of the Class of 2022.
After a 22-year career which includes a 761-380 coaching record and four trips to the National Junior College Division I Baseball World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado, Young couldn’t be happier.
In 2017, the former Middle Georgia College and ABAC coach was inducted into the NJCAA Baseball Hall of Fame. But there’s something about getting inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall that made Young smile.
“It’s always an honor to be selected to something like this,” he said. “But when your peers decided, it just seems to mean a little more.”
The Blairsville native was a three-sport letterman in football, basketball and baseball at Union County High School. After accepting a football scholarship to Liberty University, he returned to Georgia on a baseball scholarship at Georgia Southwestern State where he was named the Team MVP in 1985.
After college, he was the head baseball coach and assisted in football at Elbert County High School before returning to Georgia Southwestern where he was a football and baseball assistant coach and earned his master’s degree.
His first head coaching job in the junior college ranks was at ABAC in Tifton where he led the program for six years before taking over at Middle Georgia where he led the Warrior baseball program for six years.
Young continued Middle Georgia’s dominance in the junior college circuit, leading the Warriors to the world series in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2009.
“I was extremely blessed and very fortunate to follow some guys like Robert Sapp who had already set a precedence,” Young said. “We were fortunate to get good players and I was obviously blessed to have gotten the players I had.”
Young helped 48 players get drafted by professional teams. The list includes All-Star Josh Reddick, J.B. Wendelken, Kyle Farnsworth and Willie Harris.
His achievements include NJCAA Region 17 Coach of the Year five times (1993, ’99, ’01, 02, ’12), NJCAA East Central District Coach of the Year four times (’01, ’02, ’04, ’09) and ABCA Region Coach of the Year five times (’99, ’01, ’02, ’04, ’06).
In 2012, he was awarded the NJCAA’s 20-year service award for his time with the association.
The longtime coach credited his many assistants, managers and administrators who helped him. He also served as the athletic director at Middle Georgia from 2000-2003.
One of his former players at ABAC was Scot Hemmings, the current head baseball coach at Albany State. Not only did Hemmings play under Young, but he also coached against him when he led the Darton College program before it merged with Albany State in 2017.
“I have the utmost respect for coach Young,” Hemmings said. “The two years I played under him at ABAC, he taught me so much about the game. His energy and passion is what made me want to have a career in coaching.”