Many of you are familiar with his role as Director of Baseball Operations for our Academy. Others in the baseball community recognize him as an Assistant Baseball Coach at Bethel University but Paul Weidner continues to add to his coaching resume and the latest is a big one. Weidner has accepted an assistant coaching position with the Cotuit Kettleers of the Cap Cod Collegiate Summer Baseball League.
Weidner, a Bethel University graduate, has been coaching with The Academy since 2011 and was added to our staff full-time in 2016 as our Director of Baseball Operations. Even as an 18-year-old freshmen, Weidner’s composure and leadership made him a talked about coach within the Academy and certainly someone we weren’t going to let get away.
There are few coaching positions in the country that all you access to the most talented baseball players in the country on one field but the Cape is that place. Weidner will join a legendary Cotuit staff to work alongside Hall of Famers Mike Roberts and Jerry Weinstein. Coach Roberts, who led the Kettleers to a 2013 Cape Cod League Championship, returns for his fifteenth consecutive season as Manager. From 1978 through 1998, Roberts was the head coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Weidner will also be working alongside long time major league assistant Coach Weinstein. Weinstein got his start in coaching in 1966 at UCLA as a freshmen coach. After UCLA, he went on to win over 800 games with Sacramento City College and coached at the professional and collegiate level for 25 years, including a season on the Colorado Rockies major league staff.
“This is going to be an incredible opportunity for me to be around and coach some of the most talented college baseball players in the country, but also to learn under and alongside some amazing coaches while I'm there. A HUGE thank you to Brian for helping me get this opportunity and also for allowing me to take the time away from the Academy this summer.”
Weidner will spend the majority of his time working with the Kettleers outfielders. After his coaching duties on the Cape finish in early August, Weidner will resume his responsibilities as Director of Baseball Operations for Great Lakes.
In his book, The Last Best League by Jim Collins, Collins writes:
“Every summer, in ten small towns across Cape Cod, the finest college baseball players in the country gather in hopes of making it to "The Show." The hopes are justifiably high: The Cape Cod Baseball League is the best amateur league in the world, producing one out of every six major league players.”
Indeed this is the best summer league in the country and there’s no doubt Coach Weidner will work with a handful of top 5 round draft picks but what he doesn’t realize is the next 55 days of his life will be changed forever because of the people, the places, and the knowledge he’ll discover about himself and this great game of baseball while coaching on the beautiful, prestigious, and notorious Cape Cod.
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