Baumgartner's consistency and success leads to 500 baseball wins at Feather River
By Thomas Armstrong
Director of Athletics, Feather River College
QUINCY - Feather River College Head Baseball Coach Terry Baumgartner began his tenure with the Golden Eagles in 2006. In June of 2007, he was named Head Coach of the FRC Baseball program, just the 3rd Head Coach in program history. Baumgartner began year 18 at the helm this past Friday, January 24th in a season opener at Taft College. The start of an 18th season is a milestone in itself, however this particular 11-1 victory for the Golden Eagles marked win 500 at FRC for the legendary coach. I asked Coach Baumgartner what does win 500 mean to you? "It means I have been doing this for a long time, we have had a lot of great players and coaches come through the program," answered Baumgartner. Coach Baumgartner has indeed coached baseball for a long time. Before his arrival in Quincy, Baumgartner spent 13 years at Western Oregon University, with 11 of those seasons as the Head Coach. Over the course of 17 tremendous seasons the Golden Eagles have won 14 Golden Valley Conference Championships, 9 Regional Championships, 3 Super-Regional Championships, and Coach Terry Baumgartner has been named GVC Coach of the Year 10 times.
Terry Baumgartner is a graduate of Sprague High School, located in Salem, Oregon. Home of Legendary Hall of Fame Coach, Bill Baumgartner who spent 30 years as a teacher and coach in Salem and Klamath Falls. Bill amassed a career record of 408-257 (.614) in 26 years as a head baseball coach and was inducted into three halls of fame. He is a member of the Oregon High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the Sprague High School Hall of Fame and the Henley High School Hall of Fame. Terry played for his father in high school before moving onto a successful collegiate pitching career at Western Oregon University.
Terry Baumgartner has coached well over a thousand collegiate baseball games in the span of nearly 30 years, so coach? What is that game or moment that comes to mind first when you look back on your career, tell me the memory that stands out for you the most? "The first playoff game in 2008, everybody wanted to play us, we were massive underdogs. We hit a walk-off in the bottom of the 10th inning to win game 1, eventually winning the series in 3 games. That was truly when the era began, it was my first year as a head coach at FRC and that was the moment everything really started for us." reflects Baumgartner.
In fact, the Golden Eagles won the GVC Conference title in 2008 (Year 1 for Baumgartner) and advanced to the Regional Championship. In 2009, the Golden Eagles finished with the best record in the state at 42-5 and advanced to the Super Regionals once again. Baumgartner also points to the 2013 team as a special group. That Golden Eagles squad finished 4th in the State after a Final Four Appearance. Terry Baumgartner has never experienced a losing season in his entire coaching career....I had to ask....what is the key to maintaining such consistency? "A lot of it has to do with program culture, a culture of developing players and talent, a strong assistant coaching staff, and excellent players." "We have always maintained a consistency with finding a way to get better as the season progresses." answered Baumgartner. Terry also made special mention and appreciation for assistant coach Jason Gay, who has been with him since day 1 at Feather River College, acknowledging the impact Coach Gay has had on the program.
Baumgartner acknowledged that Feather River has unique qualities that separate the college from most other community colleges in California. "What makes us unique is our ability to focus on academics and baseball, the players are away from home and it allows them to grow as an individual, student, and athlete. The relationship with the local community and campus community is special as well, they have always supported our program."
You have been coaching baseball for thirty years, looking back at the beginning of your career to present day, what is the biggest change in the game (impact) over that time period? "No more signals, technology has greatly advanced the game, we can now communicate directly with the players on the field, both offensively and defensively." responded Baumgartner.
Baumgartner's career 500 victory was simply game 1 of 2025 in his mind as he is focused on this current season and the desire to win another conference championship and "continue playing". Baumgartner stated that "we had a great weekend and are off to a good start, we hope to win another GVC title and continue playing for as long as we can, we are going into a tough part of the schedule with 5 straight Big 8 conference opponents." The outcome for 2025 is still up in the air, however, the Golden Eagles are currently 4-0. Coach Baumgartner has amassed 503 career wins at FRC with 873 overall career wins at the time of this article and although wins and losses are not guaranteed....we can feel very confident that the man in charge has a pretty strong track record of consistency and success!!!