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Don
Sneddon
Head Coach
27th year
Don
Sneddon enters his 27th season as the coach of the Santa Ana College baseball pro-gram.
Last season, Sneddon led the Dons to their 12th Orange Empire Conference Championship on way to the Southern California Super Regional Playoffs.
In 2006, Sneddon became the all-time winningest coach in California community college baseball history when he recorded his 832nd win on March 21, 2006 when Santa Ana defeated Riverside College 2-1. Sneddon passed Jerry Weinstein who held the previous record of 831 wins while coaching at Sacramento City College.
Santa Anas accomplishments with Sneddon at
the helm have been plentiful - as the Dons have won three state championships
and 12 conference championships. Sneddons Dons have appeared in
six state championship games - with a record four in a row from 1993-96.
Previous to 1976, the Santa Ana baseball program had
only finished above .500 in 14 out of 43 seasons. Since
then, the program has gone 27 straight
seasons above .500including 19 seasons above .700.
A total of 101 different players have signed professional contracts while
another 178 players have received scholarships to play at four-year colleges
and universities during Sneddon's 26-year tenure.
His contributions to amateur baseball have been numerous
over the years. Sneddon has coached in the famed Alaska
summer league and won a National
Baseball Congress tournament title in 1980. In 1990, Sneddon toured with
a team of California community college players throughout Taiwan. The following
year he traveled to Florida as an assistant coach for the West team at
the United States Baseball federation National Team Trialsthe first
step in the 1992 U.S. Olympic team selection.
A former All-Southern California player at Cerritos
College, Sneddon transferred to Cal State Fullerton,
where he led the Titans to a California Collegiate
Athletic Association conference championship and became the schools
first NCAA Division II All-American in 1974.
After his playing days, Sneddon began his coaching career as an assistant
to Augie Garrido at Cal State Fullerton in from 1975-76. From there, Sneddon
came to Santa Ana as an assistant to Jim Reach in 1977. The Reach/Sneddon
connection turned a once sullen baseball program into a nationally recognized
powerhouse.
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