University of the Pacific in Stockton announced Friday that the school’s head baseball coach Reed Peters died unexpectedly following an illness.
Peters had recently finished his second season as Pacific’s head coach after leading nearby San Joaquin Delta College’s baseball team for 17 years.
“No amount of words could possibly convey the tremendous sadness we all feel at the passing of Coach Peters,” the school’s athletic director Adam Tschuor said in a statement.
Pacific’s baseball team had just finished its season with 24 wins, the most in a season for the team since 2014, and won a game in the West Coast Conference postseason tournament.
“Reed was with us for only two seasons, but his impact will forever be felt. When we first met, he promised to take the Tigers to new heights, and he did just that with our finest WCC performance to date, our best year this decade, and one of our highest-achieving seasons ever. He will be greatly missed, and we shall all continue to strive to ensure the program lives up to what he built,” Tschuor said.
Peters was coaching at Delta College in 2023 when he also had to deal with an unexpected loss — the sudden death of one of his players, pitcher Will Wentworth.
“You are a coach’s dream,” Peters had remembered telling Wentworth during an individual meeting. “You’re always smiling, always the player that goes above and beyond, always the first to do things without being told, putting the team before yourself, a great teammate, a great student, and an unbelievable person.”