The 2024 season will mark Jeff Willis’s 22nd as head baseball coach at LSU Eunice. Since taking over the program in 2003, his teams have combined for a 995-218 (.820) record, while capturing seven NJCAA Div. II National Championships, tied for the most in NJCAA history from one school. The program’s .820 winning percentage under Willis is the second highest of any college baseball program in the history of the sport, regardless of affiliation or classification.
Named “Team of the Decade” for 2010-19 by the JUCO Baseball Blog, the Bengals have made 10 NJCAA Div. II World Series appearances under Willis while claiming 11 regional championships and 10 district championships.
Willis is a seven-time ABCA National Coach of the Year in addition to being named an ABCA and NJCAA Region 23 Coach of the Year 11 times. He was honored with the Skip Bertman National Coach of the Year Award in 2018 by the National College Baseball Hall of Fame and was enshrined into the NJCAA Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2023.
Under the guidance of Willis, 60 Bengals student-athletes have earned All-Region honors with 25 earning All-Americans honors. Willis has also produced three National Defensive Players of the Year and two National Players of the Year. More than 200 of Willis’s former student-athletes have gone on to play at four-year institutions in his time in Eunice. Additionally, 57 players and/or signees have been drafted by Major League Baseball.
In 2010, Willis was honored to serve as the head coach of the NJCAA National Team, finishing fourth in the 25th Anniversary of the Honkbal Tournament in Haarlem, Netherlands. He served as an assistant on the NJCAA National Team in 2008 which included games against the Chinese Taipei National Team.
Since 2004, Willis has also served as the Athletic Director at LSUE. In his administrative role, Willis serves as the Assistant Regional Director for NJCAA Region XXIII, the chairman of the NJCAA All-American Committee, on the Executive Committee for the NJCAA Coaches Association and a member of the NJCAA Division II Baseball and NJCAA Division I Men’s Soccer committees.
Willis currently serves on the ABCA Board of Directors and Executive Committee as Chair of the Junior College Division.
Willis played two years as an infielder for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Trojans after playing junior college baseball. During his two years at UALR, the Trojans qualified for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament both years and saw the team set a school record for victories in a season. Willis attended Dumas High School in Dumas, Texas, where he was a Mizuno High School All-American baseball player, All-State Wrestler, and All-District Football player.
