Jeff Lyle will go to work this summer about one mile from his house.
The longtime area resident and veteran baseball coach was named coach of the Springfield Drifters on Oct. 30. He will guide the team through its fourth season in the West Coast League and beyond.
“I am super excited,” Lyle said. “The West Coast League is where it all started for me, where I started my big-boy coaching career so I have a lot of love for this league. It taught me a lot about pro baseball the way it is set up and I have a lot of respect for the way it is run. After seeing a lot of other leagues, I have a ton of respect and admiration for the coaches who have been around this league and put it on the map and kept it on the map. I’d love to be the next name mentioned as a long-time coach in this summer league and do it in the community that I live in.”
Lyle was born in Eugene before moving to Arroyo Grande, Calif. as a youngster. He played three years of varsity baseball at Arroyo Grande before graduating high school in 1995 and moving on to Merced Junior College. After a series of injuries to his wrist, elbow and rotator cuff, he moved back to Eugene in 2004 and began coaching youth baseball. He coached a couple years at Thurston High School before taking a job as a scout with the Atlanta Braves. In 2008, he began a nine-year run as an assistant baseball coach at Lane Community College. “I found out that I couldn’t be a college coach and scout, but coaching is what I fell in love with so I stayed with that career,” Lyle said. Lyle spent the summer of 2012 in the West Coast League as pitching coach of the Klamath Falls Gems and later worked with the Medford Rogues in the WCL and Great West League, including a GWL championship in 2017.
He helped coach an American Legion team in Casper, Wyo. in 2018-19 before assisting the Springfield Timbers in American Legion during the summer of 2020. He served as hitting coach of the Ogden Raptors in the independent Pioneer League in 2021 before spending the next two years in the same role with the Missoula Paddleheads of the Pioneer League.
“We can’t wait to have Jeff join our team,” said Ike Olsson, co-owner of the Drifters along with Kelly Richardson. “He is a great baseball coach with a lot of local ties, so it is the perfect fit for the Drifters.” Lyle and his fiancé, Amy Coates, bought a home about one mile from Hamlin Field.
“The Eugene-Springfield area has been my home since 2004,” Lyle said. “Every summer I have gone and coached baseball somewhere but last summer my parents were having some health issues so I stayed home. It was the first time I was able to enjoy a Eugene-Springfield summer. I usually spend the wet months here and then leave for the summer.” Lyle promises a brand of baseball that will fire up the Drifters fans throughout the summer at Hamlin Field.
“Fast and fun,” he said of his style of coaching. “I want guys that can run, athletes that hustle. We will play hard, I guarantee that. We will be interactive with the fans and the community and show people a brand of baseball on and off the field that they want to see. We want to turn these games into an event. I learned in independent ball that you are not always going to have baseball fans at the game, but if you can draw them in and engage them, they will come back. I want pitchers who throw strikes and guys who play fundamentally sound baseball. We will be culture-oriented. It can be tough to get guys to buy into the team in summer ball because they are all coming from different places, but we will get the right chemistry of guys to make a cohesive unit.”
