FIU Coach Thomas Steps Down

Henry “Turtle” Thomas has stepped down as coach at Florida International after nine seasons on the job, Baseball America confirmed Wednesday.

Thomas went 282-242-3 at FIU and reached the NCAA tournament three times, most recently in 2015 when the Panthers won the Conference USA tournament to earn the conference’s automatic bid. The Panthers went 29-29 this year, winning their final six regular season games, but lost to Marshall in the C-USA tournament.

Thomas had great success as a recruiting coordinator at Miami, Louisiana State and Arizona State, helping win national championships in 1999 (Miami) and 2000 (LSU). He has reached the College World Series 14 times with four different schools during his career, but FIU did not advance past the regionals during his tenure.

A catcher in college at High Point and Campbell, Thomas began his coaching career in 1977 at Andrews High School. He was assistant coach at Clemson from 1978-1985, helping the team to the 1980 College World Series. He was assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Georgia Tech in 1986-1987 before leaving for Miami, where he was an assistant and recruiting coordinator under Ron Fraser. The ‘Canes got to the CWS nine times in Thomas’ 12 seasons and won the title in 1999.

He moved on to LSU in 2000 in the same role and the Tigers won a CWS title in 2000. After seven seasons at LSU, he went to Arizona State, where he again served as recruiting coordinator. He was hired at FIU following the 2007 season.

2016 COACHING CHANGES
School	Departures	Arrivals
Alabama	Mitch Gaspard
Appalachian State	Billy Jones
Army	Matt Reid
Butler	Steve Farley
Florida International	Turtle Thomas
Furman	Ron Smith
Kentucky	Gary Henderson	Nick Mingione
Lamar	Jim Gilligan (ret.)	Will Davis
Missouri	Tim Jamieson
Purdue	Doug Schreiber
San Jose State	Dave Nakama
SIU-Edwardsville	Tony Stoecklin
Texas	Augie Garrido
Villanova	Joe Godri
Youngstown State	Steve Gillispie