February 13, 2025
The Gilbert Schools athletic department is excited to announce the hiring of Jake Gaul as its new head baseball coach, pending board approval, for the upcoming 2025 season.
With close to a decade of college coaching experience on the diamond, Coach Gaul comes to Gilbert after spending the past two spring seasons as an assistant at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. While he hasn’t met any of his soon-to-be Gilbert players yet, Coach Gaul says he’s excited to make the transition to being a head coach at the high school level for a program that has a history of success.
“I’m super excited for this opportunity to lead a program with a lot of success and history behind it,” Gaul, 33, said. “I hope my guys are ready to come in and play hard and work hard, and not for themselves, but for each other and the name that’s on the front of the jersey. I want to run a really fun program that plays hard and plays fast, and we’re also going to do it with class.”
Coach Gaul has been around the game of baseball his entire life, and his passion for the sport led him to a playing career at Division II Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. He graduated with a BA in biology and a minor in sports medicine, and then earned his masters degree in sports administration from Henderson State University.
Coach Gaul has spent time as an assistant baseball coach with six different programs, ranging from junior college, to NAIA, to Division II, in Kansas, New Mexico and Texas. Those schools include: Sterling College, Allen County Community College, Eastern New Mexico University, Ottawa University, University of Texas Permian Basin and Friends University. Coach Gaul worked as a pitching coach at a number of his stops, but has recently been a hitting coach at Friends University.
So what was it about the Gilbert program that drew Coach Gaul’s eye? He says it’s the chance to work with young players and develop their skills that excites him the most.
“I wanted the opportunity to help build the foundation of a program,” he said. “Being able to work with guys for three or four years to help develop them has always been my goal. And then I want to be able to help guys transition to that next level. I want to help them develop into not only great baseball players, but great young men as well to help them transition to college, whether they’re playing sports or not.”
The Gilbert baseball program has averaged 20 wins per season over the past 10 summer campaigns. During that stretch, the Tigers put together a .653 win percentage with four conference championships, six appearances in the Class 3A substate final round including a season ago, and one trip to the 3A state tournament in 2020 when they finished in the runner-up spot.
Gilbert has qualified for the state tournament three times in program history: 2009, 2011 (runner-up) and 2020 (runner-up).
Gilbert Schools welcomes Coach Gaul and is looking forward to what he and his family will bring not only to the baseball program, but to the district and our community.
