Longtime BYU head baseball coach Mike Littlewood has resigned, the university announced Monday.
In the middle of a 17-12 season, Littlewood has stepped away for “personal reasons,” athletic director Tom Holmoe said in a news release. Associate head coach Trent Pratt will take over for the remainder of the season.
Littlewood has been the Cougars’ head coach since June of 2012. In that time, he went 255-199 with one NCAA Tournament appearance in 2017. It was BYU’s first tournament berth since 2002.
After 2017, Littlewood’s tenure hit a rocky stretch. He cleaned house following the 2018 season, letting go of nearly 30% of his roster for what he deemed to be “culture” reasons.
“Not much of it was performance-based,” Littlewood said at the time. “It was just culturally. So we brought in a bunch of new guys, got guys who wanted to play and compete, no matter what their role was.”
The team responded in 2019, winning the West Coast Conference regular-season championship for the third time in his career. Since, BYU has not had a winning season.
Before BYU, Littlewood was the coach at Dixie State for 16 years and a high school coach at Alta High in Sandy.
Littlewood played at BYU from 1985-88 and was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 27th round.
Follow @kevinreynolds30