Baseball
- Title:
- Director of Player Development - Outfielders
- Email:
- packardb25@ecu.edu
- Phone:
- 252) 737-1980
Former East Carolina Baseball All-American Bryant Packard was officially named the Hitting Coach for baseball on June 15, 2026. He will work with head coach Cliff Godwin and his staff working specifically with hitters, as well as outfielders.Â
Packard entered his fourth season on staff after serving as the program's Director of Player Development and graduate manager since August 2023. In his expanded role, he will continue overseeing the development of ECU's hitters and outfielders while playing a larger role in offensive strategy and player development. Â
As Director of Player Development, Packard managed recruiting efforts, player programming, opponent scouting, analytics, travel operations and mental performance initiatives. He also worked extensively with ECU's hitters and outfielders, helping develop student-athletes both on and off the field. Â
With Packard's guidance in 2026, two Pirates earned Conference Player of the Week honors, one received American Conference Honorable Mention, and Jack Herring claimed Atlantic All-Region recognition along with several Conference accolades.  Â
With Packard's help in outfield coaching, Braden Burress and Herring were included in D1Baseball's 2026 Preseason Top 150 Outfielders list (Burress No. 38, Herring No. 96).Â
Packard, who was selected in the fifth round of the 2019 Major League Baseball Draft by the Detroit Tigers and spent four seasons in the organization, served the Pirates the last two years (2024-25) as a graduate assistant. During that time frame, he helped ECU to a pair of NCAA Regional Finals (2024/Greenville, 2025/Conway), a regular season American Athletic Conference Championship (2024) and the AAC Tournament title (2025).Â
As a player at ECU, he was named to a record-tying eight All-America Teams, a unanimous First-Team All-AAC honoree (2018-19), AAC Player of the Year (2018), two-time NCAA All-Regional member (2018-19), an ABCA All-Region selection (2018), member of the Collegiate National Team (2018) an a three-time AAC All-Academic member. In all, he appeared in 156 games making 141 starts, batted .359 (201-for-560) with 22 home runs, 44 doubles, 58 walks and 1012 RBI.
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In the Pirate annuals, Packard holds the longest hit streak in program history (32 games in 2018), while his .359 career batting average is third all-time and his 37 game on-base streak is tied for sixth-longest (2017). The 2018 season was his best in the Purple and Gold where he became the 16th player at ECU to claim the Triple Crown leading the team in in batting average (.406), home runs (14) and RBI (50), while also leading the Pirates in hits (89) and runs scored (51).
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Packard was a member of two NCAA Greenville Regional hosts teams (2018 and 2019) where the Pirates garnered a pair of national seeds, an AAC Tournament title (2018), an AAC regular season crown (2019) and a 2019 Super Regional appearance (at Louisville) after claiming the Greenville Regional title.
