Baseball: Assistant coach Jayson King to depart from program

Jayson King spent one season on West End, primarily serving as Vanderbilt’s hitting coach.

Vanderbilt Baseball lines the dugout, as photographed on February 18, 2025. (Hustler Multimedia/Barrie Barto)

By Henry Oelhafen, Sports Editor

Jun 15, 2025

Vanderbilt Baseball assistant coach Jayson King is leaving the program to pursue other opportunities, according to Kendall Rogers of D1 Baseball.

COACH SCOOP: @VandyBoys assistant Jayson King is leaving the program to pursue other opportunities, I’m told. King, who spent seven seasons as the head man at Dayton, joined the #VandyBoys staff for the 2025 season. The #Commodores now have an assistant vacancy.

UPDATED… pic.twitter.com/AbGRRvRvMT

— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogers) June 16, 2025

King spent just one season at Vanderbilt, serving as the Commodores’ primary hitting coach. He was previously the head coach at Dayton for seven years before joining head coach Tim Corbin’s staff in Nashville in July of 2024.

King helped guide Vanderbilt to an SEC Tournament title last month and the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Commodores’ season came to a bitter end as they fell to Wright State, 4-3, in their NCAA Regional.

Vanderbilt’s offense finished 2025 with a .264 batting average, which ranked 15th in the SEC, and also ranked 14th in the conference in slugging percentage at .427.

Corbin will now look to fill this assistant coaching vacancy soon in hopes of attracting top transfer talent to Nashville.

About the Contributors

Henry Oelhafen, Sports Editor

Henry Oelhafen (‘26) is a student in Peabody College majoring in human & organizational development and minoring in English. He previously served as Deputy Sports Editor and produced Live from West End, The Hustler’s sports podcast. He loves to talk about all sports, particularly professional and amateur golf. In addition to writing, he loves to hike, try new restaurants and play golf with friends. He can be reached at [email protected].

Barrie Barto, Former Editor-in-Chief

Barrie Barto (‘25) majored in medicine, health & society and communication of science & technology with a neuroscience minor in the College of Arts and Science. She also previously served as Photography Director. When she’s not hiking in Percy Warner, you can find Barrie cheering on the St. Louis Blues or tracking down the best gluten-free food in Nashville. She can be reached at [email protected].

Comments (4)

The Vanderbilt Hustler welcomes and encourages readers to engage with content and express opinions through the comment sections on our website and social media platforms. The Hustler reserves the right to remove comments that contain vulgarity, hate speech, personal attacks or that appear to be spam, commercial promotion or impersonation. The comment sections are moderated by our Editor-in-Chief, Jacob Stoebner, and the rest of our editorial team. You can reach Jacob at [email protected].

Share your thoughts...

All The Vanderbilt Hustler picks Reader picks Sort: Newest

L

Larry Vick • Jun 16, 2025 at 1:32 pm CDT

Trying to understand why a coach of Tim Corbin’s caliber would hire King in the first place. Looking at him this entire year, one has to wonder if he was unable to relate to the players. Always seemed out-of-place.


https://vanderbilthustler.com/2025/06/15/baseball-assistant-coach-jayson-king-to-depart-from-program/#comment-23108
- C
  
  Coach T • Jun 25, 2025 at 10:07 am CDT
  
  My son played for him at Dayton (where it looks like the coach replaced him is leaving for Duke and he’s going back) but he’s a terrible coach cannot relate to the players whatsoever before he left Dayton last year. The team had a mass exit. We’re only 10 players remained. On the roster. He’s very poor at communicating with his players and team. Very surprised that Dayton is bringing him back. Kind of shows they don’t care a lot about the baseball program in Dayton to someone to fill the spot.
  
  
  https://vanderbilthustler.com/2025/06/15/baseball-assistant-coach-jayson-king-to-depart-from-program/#comment-23111
R

Roy • Jun 16, 2025 at 1:11 pm CDT

After King single handedly ran Dayton’s pitching staff into the ground to run off to Vandy to pursue his “dream job for years” – it’s no surprise that he’s getting booted from Vandy as a hitting coach. He’s not a good coach of any discipline.


https://vanderbilthustler.com/2025/06/15/baseball-assistant-coach-jayson-king-to-depart-from-program/#comment-23107
K

KEITH G SLAUGHTER • Jun 16, 2025 at 7:45 am CDT

Well King was only here for one year, and our offensive woes go back further than that. Thats Corbin’s job to solve these problems.


https://vanderbilthustler.com/2025/06/15/baseball-assistant-coach-jayson-king-to-depart-from-program/#comment-23106