SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – Slippery Rock University graduates Billy Herman and Don Pugliese were recently named as assistant baseball coach at Youngstown State University and Thiel College, respectively.

Both Herman and Pugliese assumed their new roles after making their coaching debuts in 2010.

Herman, a 2009 SRU graduate, joined the YSU staff headed by former Rock assistant coach Rich Pasquale after serving one season as an assistant coach at Shippensburg University under former SRU pitching standout Matt Jones.

Pugliese, a 2010 SRU graduate, concluded his Rock pitching career last spring. He made his coaching debut last summer as an assistant coach for the Slippery Rock Sliders in Prospect League collegiate wood-bat competition.

Herman played four seasons for The Rock and earned three All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-Western Division honors while a member of the Green and White. He was a Rock team captain as a senior.

"We are very excited to have Billy join our staff," Pasquale said. "He brings the experience of having a great career at Slippery Rock offensively and defensively. He is a very organized person, and he is very passionate about the game of baseball. He is also a person who does things the right way."

Longtime Thiel head coach Joe Schaly had similar good things to say about Pugliese, who had a two-year pitching career at SRU after transferring from perennial Division IIII national power Marietta College. A two-year Rock team captain, Pugliese was an outfielder/relief pitcher on Marietta's 2006 national championship team.

Joe Schaly is the son of the late Don Schaly, who won over 1,400 games in 40 seasons (1964-2003) as Marietta's head coach and guided the Pioneers to three national championships.

“We are very excited to have Don on the coaching staff this upcoming season,” Joe Schaly said. “He has had success in the past in playing more than one position and he has also played with championship caliber programs. That experience will be a great help to the Thiel baseball program in 2010.”

Herman and Pugliese are the second and third members of The Rock program to recently attain a position as an assistant college baseball coach. Billy Messer, a four-year starter at second base before graduating in 2010, is now an administrative assistant coach at the University of Virginia.