Brian Furlong is in his third season as Baylor baseball’s director of player development, after joining the staff on August 18, 2022.
In his role, Furlong drives the program’s analytics and technology initiatives, while overseeing all aspects of video and data integration. He contributes to scouting and game planning efforts, and also serves as the program’s camp director.
Prior to joining the Baylor staff, Furlong spent the previous four seasons as the pitching coach at Xavier. During his time with the Musketeers, Furlong helped improve the pitching staff’s ERA by nearly two runs against all opponents, and by over three runs in Big East play. In 2022, the Musketeers set a program record with 482 strikeouts, just one season after setting a program record with 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings.
Prior to joining Xavier in July 2018, Furlong was the head coach at Heartland Community College in Illinois for two seasons in 2017 and 2018. While at the helm of the program, Furlong led the Hawks to an 85-26 record and advanced to the 2018 Region 24 Championship game after winning the MWAC Conference title. Furlong was named the MWAC Coach of the Year as the 2018 squad recorded the second-best grade point average in program history and finished the season ranked No. 3 in the country.
Following the 2018 campaign, Furlong saw 14 Heartland players move on to play at Division I schools, a program record. In total, 31 players continued to play after competing under Furlong at HCC, including 18 at D-I universities.
Prior to his stint at Heartland, Furlong spent three years at Creighton as the pitching coach, where he helped the Bluejays set a program record with a 3.15 ERA in 2016. CU led the Big East in team ERA in both 2015 and 2016, while Furlong also tutored five of the top seven ERA leaders in school history.
Before working at Creighton, he served as the director of baseball operations at Iowa for the 2013 season. Before that, Furlong worked as a managing partner of a Diamond Dreams Sports Academy in Iowa City.
As a pitcher, Furlong played for Iowa State in 2001, Creighton in 2003 and Iowa in 2004-05. He was recognized as a Big 12 Scholar Athlete and named to both the Missouri Valley and Big Ten academic all-conference teams during his playing career.
Furlong earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Iowa in 2007 and holds a master’s of education in coaching education and athlete development from Xavier. He and his wife, Megan, have a daughter, Colette, and a son, Will.
