NC State Wolfpack

14  Chris Roberts
	Hometown: Middleburg, Fla. Position: Pitching coach Birthdate: 06/25/1971 Alma Mater: Florida State (1992)

Now in his third season as NC State's pitching coach, Chris Roberts has turned the Wolfpack pitching staff into one of the finest in the nation. Roberts has overseen one of the most dominant two-years stretches of pitching in the history of the program.

NC State has posted a staff ERA of 4.07 since Roberts became pitching coach, and has held opposing batters to a .252 average, numbers unsurpassed and rarely approached by Wolfpack pitching in the aluminum-bat era. Under Roberts, NC State pitchers have thrown 12 shutouts in two seasons, tying the program's best-ever two-year mark for shutouts. Roberts' hurlers have amassed a 2.4/1 ratio of strikeouts to walks while allowing only 3.2 walks per nine innings. The staff WHIP (walks+hits per innings pitched) under Roberts is 1.31, a remarkable figure for college baseball. Roberts has coached two All-Americans for the Wolfpack, and three of his pitchers were named first-team All-ACC, one of them twice.

Roberts has proven to be especially adept at getting pitchers ready for professional baseball. From 1997 until Roberts arrived in 2004, the highest any Wolfpack pitcher had been drafted was the 10th round. In two years as Wolfpack pitching coach, two of Roberts' hurlers have gone in the first 50 picks of the draft. Michael Rogers went 49th overall, by the San Diego Padres in the second round in 2004; and Joey Devine went 27th overall, in the first round, to the Atlanta Braves in 2005, and shot through the Braves organization, arriving in Atlanta with the major league team on August 20, just seven weeks after signing. Rogers and Devine both were undrafted prior to coming to NC State.

Devine spent two of his three seasons at NC State pitching for Roberts and finished his career as the school's all-time leader in appearances (87) and saves (38). In 2005, Devine's junior season, he went 5-3 with a 2.03 ERA and 12 saves. He averaged 13.3 strikeouts per nine innings as a junior and 12.3 for his career. He became the first NC State pitcher ever and just the third in ACC history to record 10 or more saves in three different seasons.

Also in 2005, freshman righthander Andrew Brackman joined the Wolfpack in late March following basketball season and quickly emerged as one of the most dominant starting pitchers in the ACC, posting a 4-0 record and a 2.09 ERA. Brackman made 10 appearances, and NC State won all 10 games. Sophomore righthander Gib Hobson won six games for the Pack in 2005 and led the staff with 84 1/3 innings pitched. On March 12, Hobson pitched the first no-hitter by an NC State pitcher since 1993, beating Maryland 11-1, and was named National Pitcher of the Week. Senior righthander Phil Davidson spent the season floating between the bullpen and the rotation, and his versatility proved invaluable as he made 20 appearances, started nine times and won six games. Davidson signed a free-agent contract with the Kansas City Royals following the season and had a strong first professional season. Sophomore lefty Jason Duncan emerged as a dominating set-up man for Devine, working 24 games, winning all five decisions and compiling a 2.74 ERA.

The strong performances from Brackman and Hobson in the rotation, Duncan and Devine in the bullpen, and Davidson pitching wherever needed, allowed the Wolfpack to earn its third bid to the NCAA Tournament in as many seasons, and its 12th in the last 16 years.

In 2004, Roberts guided the NC State staff to a 3.67 ERA, the Wolfpack's best in 11 years. With Rogers and Vern Sterry pitching every Friday and Saturday, NC State was a formidable opponent in any three-game series. Often working with minimal run support, Rogers and Sterry won nine games apiece, and had a 6-4 combined record against nationally ranked teams. On May 15, 2004, Rogers and Sterry made college baseball history when each tossed a complete-game shutout against then-top-ranked Texas in Austin. NC State's sweep of the Longhorns marked the first time in the 108-year history of the Texas baseball program that the Horns had lost both ends of a doubleheader at home. Two weeks later, Rogers and Sterry were named first-team All-ACC along with Devine, giving NC State the first trio of pitchers from the same school to make first-team all-conference in league history. A week after that, Rogers and Sterry both earned All-America honors.

Statistically, 2004 was a tremendous season for Wolfpack pitching. In addition to its sterling ERA, NC State in 2004 had its best ratio of hits per nine innings (7.8) in 12 years, its best ratio of strikeouts per nine innings (8.6) in 10 years, its best ratio of walks per nine innings (3.1) in four years, and its best strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.8-to-1) in school history. Opponents batted just .234 against the Pack, the lowest opponents' average since 1992.

Major League Baseball followed the Wolfpack closely in 2004, and when the season ended the Oakland Athletics selected Rogers in the second round of the MLB First-Year Player Draft. Rogers was the highest for an NC State player (49th overall) since 1996. The San Diego Padres later picked Sterry in the eighth round. In addition, Daniel Caldwell, who missed the entire 2003 season following Tommy John ligament transplant surgery, signed a free-agent contract with the Chicago Cubs after making a strong comeback under Roberts in 2004.

That's not a bad first two years on the job, but Roberts, a two-time All-American at Florida State, has been producing and developing outstanding pitchers ever since he got into coaching five years ago. Before coming to NC State, he had a profound impact on the Western Carolina pitching staff in his two seasons in Cullowhee. Under Roberts' tutelage, Catamount pitchers saw their staff ERA fall from 6.06 in 2001, the year before Roberts arrived, to 4.59 in 2002 and 3.77 in 2003. That last figure was good enough to rank second in the Southern Conference and 28th nationally, and the Catamounts rode their stellar pitching staff all the way to the finals of the 2003 NCAA Wilson Regional. WCU's opponent in that regional final just happened to be NC State, and Wolfpack coach Elliott Avent was sufficiently impressed that he hired Roberts to be the Pack's pitching coach.

A native of Middleburg, Fla., Roberts played outfield and pitched for Florida State from 1990-92. He was a third-team All-American and Metro Conference Player of the Year as a sophomore in 1991 after hitting .321 with 14 home runs and 77 RBIs as an outfielder, and going 7-2 with a 3.52 ERA on the mound. He earned second-team All-America honors as a junior in '92 after posting an 8-4 record with a 2.34 ERA in 14 appearances as a hurler, and batting .286 with 12 homers and 59 RBIs. In his three seasons in Tallahassee, Roberts went 23-8 with a 3.30 ERA as a pitcher, while batting .301 with 32 home runs and 175 RBIs in three years in the outfield. He helped lead the Seminoles to the College World Series in 1991 and '92.

Roberts played for Team USA in the 1991 Pan Am Games in Havana, Cuba, and then was the starting left fielder for the USA Olympic baseball team in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992.

The New York Mets picked Roberts in the first round of Major League Baseball's June draft in '92, and he played in the Mets organization from 1993-97 before moving on to one-year minor league stints with the Oakland Athletics (1998), the Colorado Rockies (1999), and the Milwaukee Brewers (2001). Roberts spent the 2000 season with the Chiba Lotte Marines in the Japanese Pacific League.

As Roberts was finishing up his playing he career with the Brewers, he was simultaneously beginning his coaching career, working in the offseason as a volunteer assistant at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Fla., from 2000-01. He joined Todd Raleigh's staff at Western Carolina in September 2001.

Roberts made an immediate impact on the Catamount pitching staff. In addition to slicing more than two runs off of the staff ERA, he helped WCU pitchers reduced their hits allowed per nine innings from 11.62 in 2001, to 10.30, in 2002 to 9.49 in 2003, and reduced their walks per nine innings from 3.41 in '01, to 2.91 in '02, to 2.81 in '03. In three games during the 2003 Wilson Regional, the Catamounts allowed just nine earned runs on 20 hits in 32 innings, a 2.53 ERA.

Roberts also sent pitchers on to the professional ranks from Cullowhee. In 2002, Roberts' first year on the job, Oakland drafted Jared Burton in the eighth round. The Atlanta Braves took Ryan Basner in the seventh round in 2003. Burton and Basner were the first two WCU hurlers drafted since 1999.

Roberts and his wife Tracy have three sons, Jackson, 6; Kirgan, 4, and Landon, born June 28, 2005.