Jack Stallings Passes Away at Age 87
6/20/2018 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Wake Forest Athletic Communications (@WakeBaseball)
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Jack Stallings, a Wake Forest graduate and head baseball coach from 1960-68, passed away on the evening of June 19 at the age of 87.
Stallings devoted his life to collegiate baseball. The Durham native played on the 1951 WFU team, which took part in the Pan American Games.
A career in professional ball was halted by polio, so Stallings returned to Wake Forest to complete his degree and serve as an assistant coach for the 1955 national championship squad, the first team in any sport to win an NCAA title while representing the ACC.
After earning a master's degree and coaching at the high school level, Stallings again became a Deacon coach, first as an assistant, then head coach in 1960. In nine seasons, he guided his teams to two NCAA appearances and 152 victories.
Following the 1968 season, he became head coach at Florida State, where he coached three teams into the NCAA playoffs, including a 1970 club that finished second in the country.
From 1976-1999, Stallings was the head coach at Georgia Southern. His career record stands at an incredible 1,258-799-10. At the time of his retirement, he had the most Division I wins of any coach in collegiate baseball history. Stallings has also served as the head Pan American coach (1979), head coach for the U.S. Olympic team (1984) and assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team (1988, 1992).
Jack Stallings was inducted into the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame on February 16, 1991.