Former Eastern Coach Andy Mace Passes Away

The Eastern family is mourning the loss of former coach and faculty member Andy Mace. One of the most successful coaches in Eastern's history, Mace dedicated more than 30 years of his life to Mountaineer athletics. He began his tenure as the head baseball coach and dean of students in 1975. Over the course of his career at Eastern, he also coached the women's basketball team and finished his career as the softball coach in 2015.

All of his teams experienced great success under his leadership. Mace was one of few coaches in NJCAA history to take three different teams at the same school to NJCAA national tournaments.

Mace had an overall coaching record in college softball of 611-435 and reached the milestone mark of 600 wins in the spring of 2015. Coach Mace guided the Mountaineer softball program to four Region II Championships and four NJCAA national tournament berths, finishing as high as 5th out of 16 teams who qualified,  twice: 1997 (39-13 record), 1998 (46-5 record), 2005 (48-22 record), 2006 (63-10 record). The 63-10 team won more games than any college softball or baseball team in America in 2006.  In the 15 years Mace led the Mountaineer softball program, Eastern accumulated 27 NJCAA All-Americans or NJCAA Academic All-Americans. 

Mace's motto in recruiting softball players to Eastern was this: "We are always looking for quality humans, top students, and impact players to come to Eastern and represent our program and institution."

Please help us honor Coach Mace with words of condolence for the family or by sharing a memory from your time as a student-athlete under his leadership.