Sultan Of Stealing’s Amazing Teaching System

by • Featured Stories

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

COLUMBIA, S.C. — In the history of college baseball, nobody has ever built a running game as potent as Coach Selwyn Young at Benedict College.

The NCAA Baseball Record Book (Division 2 section) lists the amazing accomplishments of his program:

• No. 1 in total stolen bases in one season (334 in 41 games in 2013).

• No. 1 in stolen bases per game (8.15 in 2013 season).

• No. 1 in stolen bases in one game (26 in just 6 innings against Morris College in 2023).

• Of the top six NCAA Div. 2 base stealing leaders per game, Benedict holds the top six spots.

• Since this dynamic coach has been with the program, Benedict has stolen 26, 24, 18, 17 (twice), 16, 15, 14 and 13 bases in games.

• In 15 years with the program, Young’s teams have stolen 2,915 bases in 3,437 attempts for an 85 percent success rate.

• Since 2009 (excluding the COVID-19 pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 since his teams only played 11 and 8 games), his teams have averaged 224 stolen bases over 13 seasons.

We haven’t even mentioned the numerous Benedict players who are listed in the NCAA Baseball Record Book.

It is a massive understatement to say his system works with his high octane brand of baseball.

He may be the greatest teacher of base stealing in history on any level.

Young played his college ball at Pepperdine University under Dave Gorrie in the late 70s and learned the game in the greater Los Angeles area as he studied base stealing legend Maury Wills of the Los Angeles Dodgers, among others.

Young said that over the 15 years he has been with Benedict College, his base stealers are safe 85 percent of the time.

“We don’t just run at every opportunity,” said Young.

“We have smart players who run on specific counts that we are fairly sure opponents will throw off-speed pitches on.

“We chart opponent pitchers to find out what they do in every count to find out if they have tendencies. And you would be surprised how predictable teams are in different counts.”

To read more of this article which includes in-depth information about his amazing system, including his Pitch Count Chart, purchase the May 5, 2023 edition of Collegiate Baseball or subscribe by CLICKING HERE.