Azusa Pacific University Athletics

At the helm of the program since the 2003 season, Azusa Pacific head coach Paul Svagdis has taken Azusa Pacific from the realm of a perennial NAIA power, culminating with a 2012 Golden State Athletic Conference championship and a 47-12 record in the program's final year of NAIA competition, to the NCAA Division II ranks. Since then, they have earned four-consecutive West Regional Championships berths.

In 2017, he led the Cougars to a No. 2 seed in the West Region and they emerged as the host for the tournament. They finished the season with a 42-12 record. Svagdis led the Cougars to their first PacWest Championship in 2017 in just their fourth season in the conference which earned him the PacWest Coach of the Year honor.

During the 2018 regular season, Svagdis won his 517th game as the head coach at Azusa Pacific passing Tony Barbone for the most in the program's history. He then led the Cougars to a No. 2 seed in the West Region that season requiring them to host the West Regional Championship tournament once again. They finished the season with a 41-11 record, making it the seventh time in school history the Cougars had surpassed 40 wins. Svagdis and the Cougars won the PacWest Championship again in 2018 as he was awarded with the PacWest Coach of the Year honor once again.

In 2019, Svagdis led the Cougars to a No. 1 seed in the West Regional tournament as they hosted the tournament for the third consecutive season. They finished with a 40-15 record, making it season number eight with 40 or more wins in Cougar history. Svagdis has coached the Cougars for six of those eight seasons, including three consecutive 40-win seasons (2017-19). Svagdis won his third consecutive PacWest Coach of the Year honor as he led his team to its third straight PacWest Championship.
 

In the 2021 season, Svagdis led the Cougars to their fourth consecutive automatic berth in the NCAA tournament as the team won the Southern California pod with a record of 18-6 in conference play and an overall mark of 33-10.  He earned his 600th win as Azusa Pacific head coach on May 6 as part of a doubleheader sweep over Holy Names.

Svagdis took the program's past successes to a national level including leading his team to back-to-back NAIA World Series appearances in 2007 and 2008. In those two seasons, Svagdis sent five Cougars on to the professional ranks through the Major League Baseball draft, two of which made Major League Baseball debuts in 2012 (Kirk Nieuwenhuis ('08) and Stephen Vogt ('07).

Svagdis has had 27 Cougars drafted and four others signed by Major League Baseball organizations in his time at Azusa Pacific. He now has coached four players who have made it to the MLB after Adam McCreery debuted in 2018 with the Atlanta Braves and Josh Staumont debuted in 2019 with the Kansas City Royals.  He has had three players drafted in each of the last three seasons (2017-19). Most recently he saw James Acuña (29th round), Justin Gomez (31st round), and Cole Klezcz (33rd round) all get taken in the 2019 MLB Draft.

Josh Staumont and Daniel Martin were picked when they were taken in the second round (Kansas City Royal) and 24th round (St. Louis Cardinals) respectively in the 2015 draft. Staumont's second round selection is the highest of any Azusa Pacific student-athlete in any professional draft.

The Cougars at the NCAA Division II ranks have been eligible for the postseason since the 2016 season and have proceeded to make it to the final day of the West Regional, just one step away from the Division II College World Series, three of those four seasons.

He coached the program's first NCAA All-Americans in 2015 after Daniel Martin and Jordan Brower earned the honor. He developed two more All-Americans in 2017 with outfielder Pablo O'Connor and third baseman Adrian Tovalin earning the nationwide honors. Starting pitcher Michael Fairchild earned the program’s first Division II Academic All-America honor in 2017 as well. O'Connor and Tovalin were the nation’s leading homerun duo during the 2017 season, hitting 40 combined. Svagdis did it again in 2019, developing a dynamic 1-2 punch leading another pair to All-American honors in Division II. The duo of outfielder Cole Klezcz and third baseman Osvaldo Tovalin became the nation's top home run tandem in 2019 hitting a combined 46 home runs. 

After guiding Azusa Pacific into the NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round in 2009, completing a three-year run in which the Cougars posted three of the program's top eight single-season win totals, Svagdis had a young 2010 squad that showed plenty of promise despite a 20-29 overall record. Of its 29 losses, over half were by three runs or fewer, including nine 1-run defeats. Even so, Azusa Pacific still sent three more players on to the professional ranks in 2010, with two players selected in the MLB Draft along with NAIA career home run leader Brice Cutspec's free-agent signing with 2010 World Series champion San Francisco Giants.

Svagdis came to Azusa Pacific in 2003, and he led the Cougars to a 26-24 overall mark and a third-place finish in the GSAC with a 17-11 conference record. Additionally, he guided the Cougars to their 23rd consecutive playoff appearance. He spent the next three seasons laying the groundwork for the 2007 campaign, keeping Azusa Pacific competitive within the tough GSAC landscape while building the program into a national title contender. Despite missing the postseason from 2004 through 2006, Azusa Pacific kept alive a streak of 20-win seasons that now covers a 24-year stretch.

The 2007 campaign was nothing short of a dream season, and when the Cougars clinched the NAIA Region II title on its home field with a 9-5 win over Concordia, it sent them back to a place no Azusa Pacific team had been in 23 years - the NAIA World Series. The 2007 squad reeled off a program-record 51 wins and set program single-season records for runs, hits, doubles and home runs. Svagdis was named the GSAC and NAIA Region II Coach of the Year after engineering one of the most remarkable turnarounds in college baseball that year, taking a 2006 squad that finished 24-25 and turning it into the runaway 2007 GSAC champion that finished 51-10 overall and 32-4 in conference play.

Earning entrance to the 10-team NAIA World Series just once is a tall order, but returning for a second consecutive season is a monumental task for any program that competes in the ultra-competitive Golden State Athletic Conference. In 2008, Azusa Pacific became the first program since 2001 to win consecutive GSAC titles, and the Cougars swept through the NAIA Region II Playoffs to clinch back-to-back NAIA World Series berths for the second time in Azusa Pacific history.

In that two-year stretch, Azusa Pacific placed two players on the NAIA All-American first team in back-to-back seasons for the first time in program history, when 2008 GSAC Player of the Year Matt Venegas and the New York Mets' 2008 third-round draft pick Kirk Nieuwenhuis each earned the NAIA's highest honor. They followed behind 2007 NAIA All-American first-teamers and 2007 co-GSAC Players of the Year Scott Hodsdon and Stephen Vogt, who were both selected in the first 12 rounds of the 2007 draft to become the highest-drafted pair of Cougar teammates since 1983. Brice Cutspec was the 2009 GSAC Player of the Year, giving Azusa Pacific the conference player of the year in 3 straight seasons, and the Cougars have had at least one NAIA All-American first team pick in four consecutive seasons.

Svagdis came to Azusa Pacific after spending six seasons as the head baseball coach and an assistant football coach at Pomona-Pitzer, an NCAA Division III institution in Claremont, Calif., where he posted a 122-107 career mark.

At Pomona-Pitzer, Svagdis inherited a program that had fallen on hard times, but in a matter of three seasons, he brought the Sagehens to prominence and returned the program to the top of the SCIAC. After finishing a combined 21-53 in his first two seasons as a head coach, Svagdis led the Sagehens to four straight winning campaigns and three straight 20-win seasons. In 2001, he guided the Sagehens to a 24-12 mark and a 16-5 finish in the SCIAC, just 2 games behind conference champion and SCIAC power California Lutheran.

Then in 2002, Svagdis conducted Pomona-Pitzer to the finest season in school history as the Sagehens finished 36-7, including a perfect 18-0 record in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC), as well as the institution's first SCIAC baseball crown since 1955. As a result, the Sagehens were the top seed at the 2002 NCAA Division III Western Regional Playoffs. For his efforts, Svagdis was named 2002 SCIAC Coach of the Year. During the 2015 season he secured his 500th career win the his 600th career victory in 2017. His overall coaching record stands at 604-410.

As a player, Svagdis was a four-year starter in baseball and football at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., from which he graduated in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He was an All-New England selection three years and was the team MVP twice. Svagdis was selected Tufts Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year as a 1993 senior.

Immediately after graduating, Svagdis spent three seasons as an assistant baseball and football coach at Tufts and earned his master's degree in education in 1996 before taking the Pomona-Pitzer position. He is an active member of COIN (Coach of Influence), the American Football Coaches Association, and the American Baseball Coaches Association. While at Pomona-Pitzer, he was a member of the West Regional NCAA Advisory Committee and was the West Regional Chairman of the Division III All-American Committee.

Svagdis and his wife, Catherine, have a daughter Emma, and a son Dominic. In addition to his coaching duties, he also teaches in the university's department of exercise and sport science.

Svagdis at Azusa Pacific
 

* - 2020 season cut short due to COVID-19 | ^ - 2021 season consisted of a 'pod'-only conference schedule due to COVID-19