Coaching Staff

Baseball - Head Coach

Email: John Stratton

John Stratton celebrates his silver anniversary at Arizona Western College this season. He has the second-longest tenure of any baseball coach in the ACCAC, and it will be early in Year #25 that Stratton will hit the 750-win plateau (he enters the season just 9 wins shy of that prestigious mark). Stratton captured one of his three ACCAC crowns in 1995, winning the NJCAA Region I Title and the West District Runner Up spot with a #3 national ranking. In 1996, his Matadors (who are reuniting at the AWC Alumni Baseball Game this spring) won both the Region I and the West District Championship on the way to a third-place finish at the National Junior College World Series. He’s been named the ACCAC Coach of the Year and was twice given the Louisville Slugger Coach’s Award. His other ACCAC championships came in 1986 and 1999, with a conference Division title in 2003. Born and raised in Minnesota, Stratton earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Olaf College and subsequently served as an assistant coach there. In 1980, Stratton was a graduate assistant at the University of Arizona, while earning his master’s degree during the Wildcats’ National Championship season. John’s eye for young baseball talent has earned national recognition the past two summers as part of the USA Baseball Trials staff that determined the squad of the top high school baseball players in the country that won a silver medal this summer at the Pan American Games. John and his wife, Diane, have two kids: AWC graduate and former softball player Lisa, who helped lead the Lubbock Christian University softball team to the NAIA title in their first year of existence; and Alex, who currently is a two-sport athlete and first in his class academically as a senior at Yuma High School.

Baseball - Assistant Coach

Email: manifoldbbpe@aol.com

AWC’s longest-tenured assistant coach officially hits the 20-year mark with the AWC Baseball program when Alan Manifold takes his place at Kammann Field this spring. Since Manifold joined the Matadors as pitching coach all the way back in 1989, AWC has been a perennial championship contender. One of Manifold’s proudest moments as a Matador came in 1995 when-under Manifold’s tutelage-AWC’s pitching staff posted the lowest ERA in the conference, averaging slightly over one strikeout per inning. Before joining the Matadors, Manifold spent three years coaching at Flagstaff High School in the northern part of the Grand Canyon State, plus a year each at Vista High School and Cibola High School in Yuma. During his playing days, Manifold was a star player at both Palomar Community College in the San Diego area and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Hailing from Vista, California, Manifold is a physical education instructor at O.C. Johnson Elementary School in Yuma. Manifold and his wife, Monique, are celebrating their 18th year of marriage.

Baseball - Assistant Coach

Not many coaches have had the chance to leave their mark on the same program more than once, but Jack Watson is one of those special coaches who has done just that. Now in his 5th season as a Matadors’ Assistant Baseball Coach, it was Watson who arrived on the AWC campus 45 years ago to not only teach as a professor, but also to build the AWC Baseball program from the ground up as its first-ever head baseball coach. One year later in 1965, along with his current duties, Watson became the school’s athletic director. Under Jack’s direction, the AWC athletic programs flourished, especially the football team, which went to six straight bowl games, and won the National Championship in 1972. Jack stayed at the helm of the baseball team and the athletic department until 1975, when he moved into the private sector, and has spent the last 30+ years in the insurance industry, and now runs his own very successful business. Before coming to Yuma, Jack was a baseball star-first at North Phoenix High School and then on a baseball scholarship at the University of Arizona. Jack then began his coaching career while attending graduate school at the U of A, coaching the Wildcats’ freshman baseball team. He then moved on to coach Glendale High School to the Arizona State Baseball Championship in 1959. Jack and his wife, Marlee, celebrated their 50th anniversary last year, and have two children and two grandchildren. Jack’s excited to pass on his vast baseball knowledge to the new generation of Matadors.

Baseball - Assistant Coach

James Kuzniak has become used to doing things in sets of two, and doing them well. He heads into his second year on the Matadors’ coaching staff after getting right into coaching as soon as his two-year pitching career at New Mexico Highlands University came to an end, earning his Bachelor’s Degree in Human Performance and Sport in the process. Before heading to NMHU, Kuzniak was a two-year member of the Matadors’ squad in 2004 and 2005. Kuzniak came to AWC from just down the road at Cibola High School in Yuma, where he amassed a stellar 13-1 mark in two varsity seasons with the Raiders’ baseball team under head coach Duane Evans. But after spending last season concentrating on a pair of duties-strength and conditioning coach and assistant pitching coach. Kuzniak will add Recruiting Coordinator to the mix this season. Kuzniak is also a full-time teacher at Salida Del Sol Elementary School in Yuma, and just completed the first year of his professional baseball career, pitching for the Yuma Scorpions of the Golden Baseball League.

Baseball - Assistant Coach

There are few names of Yuma-area baseball players-past and present-that cause more of an immediate turn of the head and a smile when they’re mentioned than Jake Thrower’s. The native Yuman first popped up on the baseball radar as a star shortstop at Yuma High School. After earning four varsity letters and a spot on the All-State Team during his senior season with the Crims, Thrower decided to head down Interstate 8 to Tucson to join the Arizona Wildcats’ baseball program. 3 seasons under UA’s legendary coach Jerry Kendall earned Thrower an All-Pac 10 Honorable Mention selection… and a big pro contract with the San Diego Padres. Thrower spent nine years in the minor leagues, and was just a stone’s throw away from making the majors with the Padres, Indians, Expos and Angels several times. A series of knee injuries finally convinced Thrower to hang up his player’s jersey for good in 2005, but baseball was still in his blood. So Jake came home to Yuma to help out his younger brother, Judd, a former starting 1st baseman for AWC and now the Yuma High Varsity Head Baseball Coach, for 2 years as an assistant. Now Jake heads to Kammann Field to become the latest member of the Thrower family to become part of the Matador family, following Judd and their mother, Gay, who retired in 2005 after more than 30 years of teaching at AWC. Thrower has been married to his wife, Jahan, for 4 years.