UC Baseball Head Coach Googins Parts Ways with the Bearcats

University of Cincinnati Athletics lost another member of its baseball staff this week after head coach Scott Googins decided his time with the Bearcats was up and handed in his resignation.

Looking for Their New Head Coach

Announcing Googins’ resignation on Wednesday, University of Cincinnati Athletics director John Cunningham paid tribute to Googins’ contribution to the team during his time with UC.

“I want to thank Coach Googins for his time and commitment to the Bearcats,” Cunningham said, outlining that UC has initiated “a national search for a new head coach” and is looking with optimism into the future of the team and baseball the state.

Googins’ decision to resign as the Bearcats head coach comes six years after he joined UC and on the background of an ongoing investigation by the NCAA into possible violations of the association’s gambling rules by staff members.

The NCAA investigation which was launched on May 8 already saw UC fire two other baseball staff members, assistant baseball coach Kyle Sprague and director of operations Andy Nagel, who were dismissed by the university athletics department based on the initial findings.

At the time of the dismissals, the future of the team’s head coach was left hanging in the air. There is no information linking Googins with the investigation. He and Sprague joined the Bearcats in the summer of 2017 from Xavier University.

Failure to Report Gambling Activities

The NCAA investigation was launched for possible violations of the regulations requiring staff members to report to the NCAA information related to gambling activities after a sportsbook in Ohio identified suspicious wagers on the Alabama-LSU baseball game on April 28.

As first reported by Sports Illustrated, the sportsbook found out that the Indiana resident, Bert Eugene Neff Jr., who placed the wagers, was in communication with Alabama coach Brad Bohannon at the time he placed the bets. That information led to Bohannon losing his coach position at Alabama.

It is not clear whether Neff, who is the father of Cincinnati sophomore pitcher, Andrew Neff, placed bets on the Bearcats games but initial findings uncovered that both Sprague and Nagel were aware of his gambling activity and failed to report it to the school administration or the NCAA.

During his six seasons as head coach, Googins managed to lead the Bearcats to one NCAA tournament berth in 2019. This past season, the team finished 24-33.

Alabama and Ohio were not the only states affected by college baseball gambling-related scandals as just days after Alabama fired coach Bohannon, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission (IRGC) launched an investigation into the University of Iowa’s baseball team.