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Dave Serrano, in his seventh season as Cal State Fullerton’s pitching coach and recruiting coordinator, has quickly established himself as one of the top assistant coaches in the country. Baseball America has called Serrano the top assistant coach on the West Coast and tabbed him as a finalist in 2002 for national Assistant Coach of the Year. His recruiting efforts have played a large part in Fullerton's ongoing success. Twice in the last three years, his recruiting classes have been ranked among the top two in the nation. This year’s incoming class was tabbed second by both Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball and the 2001 class was ranked No. 1 by Collegiate Baseball. Since Serrano’s arrival, each of the Titans’ recruiting classes has ranked among the top 15 nationally. During his watch at Fullerton, 16 pitchers have been drafted, and, already, four of his Fullerton products (Matt Wise, Adam Johnson, Brandon Duckworth and Kirk Saarloos) have reached the Majors. Serrano also coached a pair of future Major Leaguers on the 1996 Tennessee team in Mike Lincoln and R.A. Dickey. Saarloos, a budding prospect for Houston, was named the SportsTicker Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2002 and took the National League by storm, earning league Rookie of the Month honors in July. Of the 14 Titans to earn All-American honors at Fullerton since Serrano’s arrival in 1997, 10 have been pitchers. In 2001 alone, four Titan pitchers earned a total of 14 All-American citations, including Saarloos, who was a finalist for virtually every National Pitcher of the Year award. Serrano has also coached 17 all-conference hurlers, including three of the last five conference Pitchers of the Year (Benito Flores in 1998, Johnson in 2000 and Saarloos in 2001). Serrano’s staffs have led the conference in ERA in every season except 1999 (when Pacific’s 4.29 ERA barely clipped Fullerton’s 4.44 mark) and last year (when Long Beach was about a half-run better). The Titans have ranked among the nation’s top-25 in ERA in each of the last three seasons (17th in 2000, 14th in 2001, 24th in 2002). Serrano, 38, in eight years of coaching at the Division I level, has been to Omaha three times with two different programs. He was the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator in 1995 and 1996 at the University of Tennessee for Head Coach Rod Delmonico. He helped the Volunteers reach the College World Series in 1995, the first time they had visited Omaha in 44 years. At Fullerton in 1999, Serrano molded an assortment of question mark arms into an exclamation point staff that propelled Fullerton to its 10th Omaha bid. Serrano has coached more than two dozen pitchers who are currently playing professional baseball. At Tennessee, he coached a pair of first-round draft picks in Dickey and Todd Helton, the latter of whom has blossomed into one of the best hitters in baseball after having also pitched at Tennessee. This is Serrano’s second go-around as an assistant to Horton. He worked with him at Cerritos College for three years (1988-90) before Horton moved to Fullerton in 1991 as an assistant to Augie Garrido. Serrano remained at Cerritos through the 1994 season. In his seven-year tenure, Cerritos won a state championship (1989) and six conference titles, including 1991, when Serrano was the Falcons’ head coach and earned South Coast Conference Coach of the Year honors. Serrano graduated from Cerritos High School in 1982 and played two seasons at Cerritos College. In 1985, he went 12-1 and earned junior college All-American honors while helping the Falcons go 39-5 and win the state championship. Serrano then pitched for Cal State Fullerton in 1986, posting a 3-4 record with one save in 15 appearances. He and his wife, Tracy, live in Buena Park with their sons, Kyle (7) and Zachary (5).
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