Upon conducting a national search to find a replacement for former Head Baseball Coach Jake Martin, DePauw hired Blake Allen, a former DePauw student-athlete and assistant coach. He was most recently an assistant coach at Vanderbilt University.
Allen, a St. Louis, Mo., native attended DePauw for two years. He played as an outfielder for the Tigers during the 1996 and 1997 seasons, and also played on the football team for one season. He transferred to Blackburn College in Carlinville, IL where he set several receiving records in football and received an honorable mention for all-conference in baseball.
After earning a degree from Blackburn, Allen decided to come back to DePauw to serve as an assistant baseball and football coach. During his return to Greencastle, Allen earned a Master of Science degree from Indiana State University. He then assisted in both baseball and football at Franklin College during the 2003-2004 season.
Allen served a total of five seasons with the Vanderbilt Commodores. Allen first arrived in Nashville in 2004-2008 for a four year period and returned for the 2016 season. At Vanderbilt, he acted as a first base coach, assistant hitting coach, bullpen coach and catching coach at various points in time.
Vanderbilt had a 210-101 overall record while Allen was on staff including four NCAA regional appearances and a Southeastern Conference championship.
Allen was also assistant baseball coach and recruiting coordinator at Western Kentucky University from 2009-2015. While on staff for the Hilltoppers, Allen assisted with hitting, pitching and catching coach. The team was ranked in the Top 25 of NCAA Division I three different seasons during Allen’s tenure. They also made one NCAA regional appearance and earned one Sun Belt Conference title.
Now with 15 years of coaching experience under his belt, Allen is ready to make the move back to the University he fell in love with so many years ago.
I never really wanted to leave in the first place, DePauw has always had a special place in my heart when I was a student and when I was a grad assistant,” he said. “When the opportunity to come back came about, it was a point in my life to where I could be head coach. I absolutely love this university. It’s a great place to raise a family, and now that I have three children and a wife, that’s a big part of my life.
From a coaching perspective, Allen saw DePauw as a special place due to their abundance of coaches who have returned year after year.“There’s a reason why Coach Kaufman, Coach Lynch comes back, Coach Nick, Coach Zellers. There’s so many coaches that have never left, or that have been here a long time, and I think that’s pretty cool. So, when I was thinking about this opportunity, I kept on going back to that,” said Allen.
Ultimately, Allen saw DePauw as a unique place, “I see that this place is special, I knew it was special when I was a student, I knew it was special when I was a grad assistant, and just by looking at what they’ve done over the years from a coaching standpoint,” said Allen. “That’s a big part of why I decided to come back.”