Jayson King

Jayson King joined the Vanderbilt coaching staff in July 2024 as an assistant coach.

King came to Vandy after seven seasons as head coach at Dayton. King has 27 years of head coaching experience with 840 career victories including 165 with the Flyers. Prior to Dayton, King was the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator at Army for the 2017 season after spending the previous 18 seasons as head coach at NCAA Division II Franklin Pierce.

At Franklin Pierce, he led the Ravens to 10 NE-10 Conference championships, seven NCAA Northeast Regional appearances, and seven trips to the NCAA Division II College World Series. King earned the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Northeast Region Coach of the Year honor on seven occasions, most recently in 2016. He was also selected the Division II Coach of the Year by the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association (NEIBA) seven times.

A 1993 graduate of Framingham State (Mass.) College, King received a bachelor’s degree in sociology while playing four seasons for the Rams. He went on to earn his master’s degree in physical education in 1996 from Springfield (Mass.) College.

In July 2023, King had 2023 ace Mark Manfredi selected in the ninth round of the MLB Draft by the Milwaukee Brewers, marking the highest pick in program history. Two others, Riley Tirotta and Mariano Ricciardi, were selected in 2021 under King’s tutelage, becoming the first FlyBoys drafted since 2012, and the first time a pair of Flyers were picked since 2010.

The 2021 season saw the Flyers hit 69 home runs, the third-most in a season in program history and strike out 436 opposing hitters, the second-highest total from a Dayton team.

In 2019, the Flyers went 32-26-1 and advanced to the championship game of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. The team’s 32 wins were also the program’s most since the 2011 season. Dayton also set the program record with 491 strikeouts by Flyer pitchers.

Dayton saw its conference winning percentage improve by 30 percent from the 2017 and 2018 combined seasons to the 2019 and 2021 seasons, the sixth-highest increase of any school in Division I.

His first full recruiting class at Dayton was ranked in the top 100 in the nation by Perfect Game and No. 2 in the Atlantic 10 Conference.