After a historic 32 years, legendary Jackets baseball head coach Danny Hall made the decision to retire midway through the 2025 season. Hall finished his career with his sixth regular season ACC championship and as the winningest coach in Tech history. While the season ended early with a semifinal exit in the Oxford Regional, it does not take away from Hall’s illustrious coaching tenure.
When Hall first announced that he was going to retire following the season, all eyes turned to associate head coach James Ramsey, a focal point of Tech’s successful high school recruiting strategy and hitting prowess. While the athletic department conducted a national search, on June 5th, interim athletic director Jon Palumbo announced that Ramsey would take the helm as the 13th head coach of Tech baseball.
Ramsey, an Atlanta native, attended Wesleyan School and studied at Florida State from 2009–2012, where he played baseball for the late head coach Mike Martin. During his time in Tallahassee, Ramsey was a three year starter in the outfield and helped lead the Seminoles to two separate College World Series appearances. In his senior season, he was named ACC Player of the Year. Following this successful collegiate career, Ramsey was drafted in the first round by the St. Louis Cardinals and began his professional career. While Ramsey would never make it to the big leagues, he would bounce around different organizations in the minor leagues before deciding to hang up the cleats in 2018.
After professional baseball, Ramsey pivoted to coaching, heading back to his alma mater for a year before receiving an offer to join the Tech staff. Since the beginning of his tenure, the Jackets have led the ACC in batting average and finished inside the top three of hits, home runs and slugging percentage. Ramsey’s patient approach and advanced strategy quickly spread across the team as Tech continued to rack up the hitting accolades.
While serving as an assistant coach for the last seven years, he helped sign four top five ranked high school recruiting classes and coached 17 future MLB draft picks. Ramsey’s recruiting prowess has been one of the main reasons for Tech’s continued success in recent years.
Following the announcement of Ramsey’s promotion, Tech’s players celebrated and expressed their excitement for the coming years. In a world where player retention is incredibly important, it is likely that the transition from Hall to Ramsey will result in fewer impactful transfer outs. Also, Ramsey plans to keep many of the same staffers from last year such as pitching coach Matt Taylor and former SEC head coach Scott Stricklin.
In Ramsey’s introductory press conference, he stressed the goal of the team for years to come: make it to Omaha (home of the College World Series) and win a national championship.
“We’ve got to win,” Ramsey said. “The standard I have is to have this program be in Omaha and to win a national championship. I think people need to hear that. It’s not something we are going to shy away from… So the Omaha expectations, it has to be focused on the process. But Omaha can’t seem to be a place too distant for us. Omaha is right here in front of us, [and] winning a national title is attainable.”
While the goal for next season and future ones remains high, the program’s talent sits in a great place. Seven Tech players were recently awarded with All-ACC honors, and three were listed as Perfect Game All Americans. Even with the talent, the prominence of youth was a growing point throughout the 2025 season. With key pieces returning next year, Ramsey believes this team is capable of making an Omaha run next year if players buy in.
“I absolutely think I’m comfortable putting an Omaha tag on this team,” Ramsey said. “I think it’s more so telling them you guys want this, but this is what it takes to be there and having gone to that place and played in that stadium we’ve got to prepare our team to win a regional … and then ultimately once you get to the College World Series you know anything can happen, and I’m excited to see where this team takes us.”
As Ramsey gets settled into the new role, his mind shifts to recruiting and retention. Even with the transfer portal’s increasing prominence, Ramsey will continue to emphasize a focus on getting impressive high school talent. While no one can predict exactly what next season will look like , Tech can hope for highlights, pivotal games and a deep NCAA run.