In September 2012 Lancaster Bible College President Dr. Peter W. Teague and Director of Athletics Pete Beers tabbed Brad W. Brubaker as head coach and charged him with resurrecting the College’s dormant softball program. LBC fielded an intercollegiate team from 1982 thru the 2001 season, prior to scaling back to club status over the last decade.
In its second season back on the field in 2015, Brubaker led the Chargers to a school-record 16 wins and an impressive fourth place finish out of six colleges in the North Eastern Athletic Conference’s (NEAC) South Division with a program-best 10-10 mark. The team rebounded from a 3-7 start to finish 13-11 over its final 24 games. For second straight year, Lancaster Bible defeated every NEAC South foe at least once, including a season-ending sweep at Penn State-Abington, the eventual NEAC Post-Season Tournament runner-up. The Chargers captured the season series from Abington, three games to one, and further strengthened a growing reputation as giant killers. In 2014, the Chargers placed an exclamation mark on its first season in 13 years with a signature win over two-time defending NEAC Champion Penn State-Berks, 11-7, to end the Lions’ 23-game conference winning streak. In just two seasons Brubaker is the winningest coach in the program’s 22-year history with 28 victories.
In his first two seasons at the helm, Brubaker has recruited and coached a bevy of talented players that have earned recognition and accolades, including Courtney Koser, a 2015 NCCAA First Team All-American, NCCAA East Region Player of the Year and NEAC South First Team All-Star. In addition, Kelsey Collins was named the NCCAA East Region Pitcher of the Year in 2015 as well as a NEAC South First Team All-Star. Since 2014, Brubaker has coached six players that earned All East Region first team honors and an additional player that earned honorable mention selection. He also coached Julia D’Arrigo, the 2015 NEAC South Division Rookie of the Year, four first team NEAC All-Stars; and one second team honoree. The team completed the 2013-14 academic year with a combined 3.12 cumulative GPA and was ranked 84th nationally among all NCAA Division III softball-playing institutions. Four players from the 2014 squad earned NEAC Scholar Athlete and National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-American Scholar Athlete awards.
Brubaker has amassed an impressive coaching career that spans back to 1990. A veteran of more than 300 games at the collegiate level, he came to LBC after most recently serving as head softball coach at Lancaster Mennonite School.
He concluded a successful high school coaching career with an overall record of 42-41 and is the only head coach in Lancaster-Lebanon League history to lead two L-L League Section 4 schools to post-season play; Columbia High School in 2010 and Lancaster Mennonite School in 2013.
His three-year coaching stint at Lancaster Mennonite saw the revival of the Blazers program. He inherited a team that went 0-17 in 2010, had not won a game in two seasons, and was ranked 23rd out of 23 schools in the PIAA District III Class AA Rankings. By 2013 he guided the Blazers to the school's first post-season appearance in 12 years and first winning record since 2003, going 13-8 and earning a ranking of 8th in the final District 3 Class AA power poll. From 2012-2013 his LMH teams recorded a 22-19 mark; impressive given the school had an overall record of 23-107-1 in the previous seven seasons combined. During his time at Lancaster Mennonite, Brubaker coached eight players who earned Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 4 First Team All-Star honors and three players who garnered Section 4 honorable-mention accolades.
Brubaker’s commitment to the student-athlete was evident in how his teams have performed academically. In his three years at the LMH helm, 90% of his players were named to the school’s honor roll. The 2011 team was recognized by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association as having the 18th highest grade-point-average (3.837) among all softball-playing high schools nationally on a weighted grading system; and was second in Pennsylvania behind West Chester East H.S. In 2012, the NFCA recognized the Lancaster Mennonite softball team as having the 26th highest grade-point-average nationally in its National Scholar-Athlete Program.
Brubaker received his first head coaching position at the high school level in 2010, when he took over a struggling Columbia (PA) High School Crimson Tide program. In the 25-year history of the program prior to Brubaker’s arrival, the Tide had never enjoyed a winning season and had won only 36 total games in those 25 seasons. Brubaker guided Columbia to a 14-8 record in 2010, earned the school’s first post-season appearance and victory, and advanced to the quarterfinals of the PIAA District III Class AA Tournament. Columbia finished ranked 7th in the final District III Class AA ratings. He coached the school’s first All-State softball player – Emily Detz, who earned Class AA Honorable Mention status, as well as three L-L League Section 4 First Team All-Stars.
A 1988 graduate of Elizabethtown College (PA), where he earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration with concentrations in marketing and corporate communications, Brubaker’s longest coaching tenure has been at his alma mater, where he served as an assistant coach from 1990-1992 and from 2005-2009. He was the Blue Jays outfielders coach and in 2007 became more instrumental in student-athlete recruitment efforts for the program. During his two coaching stints at Elizabethtown College, Brubaker was part of a staff that guided the Blue Jays to three post-season appearances, including conference runner-up finishes in 1992 and 2008.
As the outfield position coach he instructed three NFCA All-East Region selections at Elizabethtown in Kelli Thon (2006, 2007) and Marian Guzik (2009), as well as four First-Team All-Conference honorees. Brubaker was promoted to third base coach in 2007. That season he engineered a 3-2 upset win over Moravian College, ranked fifth in the nation in Division III, a feat which is tied as the highest nationally-ranked opponent ever defeated by a Blue Jay softball team.
Brubaker was also deeply involved in coaching Junior Olympic Travel Teams in the 12U, 14U, 16U and 18U classifications, winning a combined 117 games from 2007-11. During that five-year span, those travel teams garnered 22 top three tournament finishes, including 15 championship game appearances and seven tourney titles. In 2012 he served as an assistant coach for the Pennsylvania Shooting Stars 18U Showcase team, which finished with a 26-22-2 record and were the 18U Playback Champions at the 2012 Pennsylvania Softball Summer Finale.
During his fastpitch softball playing career Brubaker competed at the ASA Class “A” and “B” levels as an outfielder for a number of teams based in Lancaster County, PA. Brubaker also played collegiate soccer at Elizabethtown as a member of two nationally-ranked Blue Jay squads, and appeared in the 1984 NCAA Division III National Tournament.
His leadership style on the softball field has transitioned effectively to a successful business career where Brubaker has established a reputation as a task-oriented, passionate sales & marketing leader with over 25 years of experience driving strategic, profitable growth in various business sectors, including real estate development, environmental services and professional trade organizations. He is currently director of sales & marketing at Penn Waste, Inc., a trash and recycling company based in York, PA.
Brubaker has two daughters, Madison, a junior psychology major at Grove City College and outfielder on the Wolverines softball team; and Morgan, a soon-to-be freshman at Central Penn College where she will pursue an Associates' Degree as an occupational therapy assistant and play volleyball.
The Brad Brubaker File
Overall Record: 28-39, 17-22 NEAC
First Lancaster Bible Game: March 10, 2014 vs. St. Lawrence (L, 10-2)
First Lancaster Bible Win: March 14, 2014 vs. Franciscan (W, 9-8)
2014: 12-21, 7-12 NEAC
2015: 16-18, 10-10 NEAC
