Baseball Coaching Staff
Head Coach Paul Benim
Paul Benim enters his seventeenth season as a head coach at Penn State Behrend.
During the past four seasons the blue and white have posted 116 wins while battling the rugged AMCC for a 53-19 conference mark.
The 2008 season was special. The program posted a 34-12 mark, won both the AMCC regular-season and conference tournament title, and advanced to the NCAA Regional as the four seed.
Prior to posting a 27-12 mark in 2007, the 2006 Behrend Lions posted the third most wins in school history with 28 and advanced to the ECAC Southern Region Tournament for the fourth time in five years.
In 2005, the blue and white played in the AMCC championship game for the third time in four years, finished with 27 wins, and gained another berth into the ECAC Southern Region Playoffs.
Benim has established the Behrend Lions as one of the best programs in the Mid-Atlantic Region earning regional and national attention. In the thirteen years prior to taking over, the program had won only 24% of its contests. During Benim's tenure the program has earned victories in 60% of its games with nearly every school record being broken. The program has made the conference tournament eight times, won three regular-season and two conference tournament titles, and finished as the runner's-up four times. Benim, the all-time leader in baseball coaching victories at Behrend, is 322-199-2 during thirteen seasons and posts a career head coach mark of 404-236-2.
The 2003 season was one of the best seasons in the history of Behrend baseball. The team won three championships and posted a 33-10 record. For his team's performance Benim was named the AMCC's Coach of the Year for the third time.
The 2002 season marked Behrend’s best season in over forty years of baseball. The Behrend Lions set a school-record with a 35-8 record. In addition, the squad won the AMCC regular-season title, the ECAC Championship, and broke nearly every school record imaginable.
Prior to becoming head baseball coach Benim served Penn State Behrend as the head softball coach for three seasons. He guided the team to 82 wins and three straight postseason appearances and a national ranking. In 1993, Benim led the team to an impressive 29-6 record while capturing the ECAC Championship. In the fall of 1998, this team was recognized as one of the ten best ever at the College.
Benim also served as an assistant baseball coach at Iroquois High School and aided the Braves in winning the ECL title in 1992. He began his career as an assistant women’s basketball coach at Behrend when the team won the school’s first-ever ECAC Championship.
In addition, to running the highly successful Behrend baseball clinics series and summer camps, Benim has worked camps at Bucknell, Clemson, Slippery Rock, Youngstown State, and for Ripken Baseball. He also serves on the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional committee and the ECAC Southern Region baseball committee.
Benim earned his bachelor’s degree from Penn State Behrend in business and behavioral sciences and his master’s degree in counseling from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.
E-mail Head Coach Paul Benim: prb3@psu.edu
Assistant Coach Paul Henry
Paul
Henry begins his first season
as an assistant coach for the Behrend Lions after completing a standout
career for the blue and white.
While at Behrend, Henry was a four-year letterwinner playing behind the plate and serving as a designated hitter. He played in 107 games during his tenure, knocked a pair of home runs and drove in 30 runners at the plate. Henry fielded at a .988 clip, and was an integral part of the program's most winningist class, posting a 116-58 record.
In each of Henry's four seasons, the program advanced to the AMCC Conference tournament and logged a 53 and 19 mark in conference play. His team's played for the league title twice and also made two appearances in the ECAC Southern Region Tournament. Then as a senior, behind Henry's leadership, the year culminated with the program's 34-12 record en route to the 2008 AMCC Championship, and the program's first-ever appearance in the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional.
Henry, who was a four-time Academic All-Conference performer and was a member of Chi Sigma Alpha National College Athletic Honor Society as a senior, was named Behrend's Leadership and Scholarship Award Winner for the 2007-08 season. Henry will coach first base and work with the pitchers and catchers.
Henry earned a degree in Biology from Behrend. He is currently pursuing a Penn State Behrend MBA.
Assistant
Coach Butch Kemling
Butch Kemling
enters his seventh season as a
member of the Behrend Lions baseball staff.
In four straight seasons he has guided the Penn State Behrend offense to produce an average above .300, earn more than 400 hits and knock in more than 200 runs. The 2008 season was a special one with the program setting numerous records for hits (484), doubles (104), and ranking third in a season for runs, RBI, and team batting average at .336.
In 2007, the blue and white's offense had another solid year batting .321, while the year before they collected 414 hits and posted .304 average in 46 games.
In 2005, he helped the Behrend Lions hit .323 and knock 427 total hits while scoring 263 runs in 44 games. In 2003, under his leadership the Behrend Lions led NCAA Division III in triples with 40.
Previously he had served as an assistant to Ace Radovich at Edinboro University for six seasons and served as the interim head coach for the Scots in the fall of 2001.
Kemling was the head baseball coach at Northwestern High School for six seasons and then coached the Girard Yellow Jackets during the 1995 season. He also coached the county teams in the city-county all-star games for four consecutive seasons.
Kemling will utilize his knowledge and experiences to guide the team's hitters and work with the outfielders.