Missouri State

One of the most successful baseball coaches in Missouri Valley Conference history, Keith Guttin began his MSU head coaching career in 1983, and spent his 42-year career building the Bears into one of the top programs in the country before retiring after the 2024 season. Under Guttin, the Bears won more than percent of their games, averaging 34 victories a year and racking up 12 different 40-win seasons.

Guttin finished his career second among active Division I head coaches and 12th overall in career victories (1,396), and has been a part of the MSU baseball program as a player, assistant coach and head coach for 47 of the program’s 61 years. He took the helm of Bears baseball at the start of the 1983 season, coinciding with the move of Missouri State athletics to Division I status. He inherited the reins of the program from its only previous head baseball coach, former Missouri State Director of Athletics Bill Rowe. Guttin ultimately helped stretch MSU’s string of consecutive winning seasons to 32 in a row, easily the longest of any Missouri State athletics team. His 1,396 career wins are the most recorded by any head coach in the 114-year history of Missouri State athletics, and the Bears finished in the top half of the conference race in all but eight of his 42 seasons.
 
During Guttin’s tenure, 140 Bears signed professional contracts, including six first-round draft picks and 21 players who advanced to the Major Leagues at the time of his retirement. Additionally, MSU won 20 regular-season or conference tournament championships and made 12 NCAA Division I Tournament appearances.
 
In 2003, Guttin led the Bears to the NCAA Division I College World Series for the first time in school history, marking the only trip to Omaha by a Division I team from the state of Missouri since 1965. He was a conference coach of the year 13 times and was selected as the American Baseball Coaches Association Division I Midwest Region Coach of the Year in both 1997 and 2003.
 
Guttin’s pupils produced results off the diamond as well. Missouri State baseball players were recognized on the Valley’s all-academic team 75 times since the inception of the honor in 1992. Additionally, seven Bears garnered academic All-America honors on 12 different occasions under Guttin, including three-time selection Brian Mahaffey.
 
Missouri State claimed four NCAA Regional appearances and three MVC regular-season titles in his last seasons, including a 2022 club that hit 110 home runs - third in program history - to power the Bears to an MVC Tournament title and automatic NCAA berth. In 2018, Guttin picked up his second consecutive MVC Coach of the Year honor after leading the Bears to their 12th 40-win campaign, as MSU swept the MVC regular-season and postseason conference crowns for just the second time in school history. The previous spring, the Bears won their first 18 Valley games en route to the title, then captured their third overall NCAA Regional crown by knocking off Arkansas in the deciding game of the Fayetteville Regional. MSU saw its storybook season come to an end at the Fort Worth Super Regional, as TCU secured a fourth straight trip to Omaha with a two-game sweep of Guttin’ Bears. Consensus All-America picks Jake Burger and Jeremy Eierman led a potent Bears lineup that paved the way to a 43-20 campaign, while Valley pitcher of the year Jake Fromson led a star-studded pitching staff and garnered All-America recognition of his own.
 
The 2015 season will go down as one of the more memorable campaigns for Guttin, who was inducted into both the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and Springfield Area Sports Hall of Fame during the year. He also surpassed the 1,100 career victory mark early in MSU’s record-setting season en route to earning his fifth MVC Coach of the Year nod. Under Guttin’s guidance, the 2015 Bears set a program record with 49 victories and were ranked as high as No. 6 (Baseball America) in the nation while capturing the Valley’s regular-season and postseason tournament titles. MSU went on to earn its ninth NCAA Division I postseason berth, sweeping the Springfield Regional at Hammons Field to advance to its second Super Regional appearance, where the Bears came up just one win shy of punching their ticket to the College World Series.
 
After narrowly missing out on NCAA Tournament bids in three of the previous four seasons, Guttin guided a veteran-laden 2012 MSU squad to a 40-22 season that culminated in the Bears’ first trip to the postseason since 2003. Along the way, MSU set numerous program records, including an all-time best team earned run average (2.57), thanks in large part to pitcher Nick Petree, who became the program’s first Louisville Slugger National Player of the Year (Collegiate Baseball) after posting a Division I-low ERA of 1.01.
 
Early in MSU’s breakthrough 2012 season, Guttin became the 46th Division I baseball coach and the third Valley bench boss to reach the 1,000 career-win mark with the Bears’ 3-2 victory over Northwestern State on March 3.
 
Missouri State returned to the top of The Valley in 2009, finishing the league schedule with a 17-5 record after sweeping Creighton and Indiana State in the final two weeks of the season. Both CU and ISU entered its series with MSU atop the MVC standings.
 
MSU’s stellar 2009 season followed a 2008 campaign when the team went 40-17 overall, earning Guttin his 10th conference coach of the year honor.
 
In 2007, Ross Detwiler was selected sixth overall in the MLB Draft, the highest pick in school history, and the Bears came within a win of the NCAA Tournament in 2006 before falling in the MVC Tournament finals.
 
MSU’s first-ever NCAA Division I College World Series appearance in 2003 capped a season in which the Bears won the MVC regular season title for the second time in three seasons. The Bears’ NCAA Tournament trip was the second straight NCAA berth and the sixth appearance in nine years for MSU. That year, Guttin garnered the American Baseball Coaches Association Midwest Region Coach of the Year award and his second MVC Coach of the Year honor in three seasons. It was his third conference honor since the Bears joined the Valley and it was Guttin’s ninth conference coach of the year recognition in 23 years as a head coach.
 
In 2002, the Bears posted their first 40-win season since 1991 and won the second-most games in school history and the most since winning a school record 47 games in 1987. Missouri State advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in eight years but the first time since 1999.
 
In 2001, Guttin led the Bears to their first-ever MVC regular-season championship and, in the process, dethroned perennial league powerhouse Wichita State. The Shockers had previously won outright or shared the Valley regular season crown in the previous 14 years, but the Bears posted a 22-10 record in 2001 and beat WSU by one game in the final league standings.
 
While the accomplishments of Guttin’s teams on the field speak volumes about the success of his program, another dream came true in April 2004 when the Bears opened a sparkling 8,000-seat stadium just four blocks north of the Missouri State campus. The Bears finished the year ninth among NCAA Division I teams in attendance, playing only a portion of their home schedule at Hammons Field.
 
It was merely a coincidence that the crown jewel of the Missouri State baseball program came one year after the Bears exploded onto the national college baseball radar in the College World Series. But both events show the growth of college baseball in the Ozarks and the amount of community and administrative support the program had received in the last several years. With the continued support of the MSU community, Guttin has led the Bears’ efforts in numerous charitable endeavors, including the program’s annual Price Cutter Celebrity Golf Classic, proceeds from which have been committed to Champion Athletes of the Ozarks in each of the last 20 years. MSU’s popular First Pitch and Reunion Night has also been a positive force for both the Bears and a variety of local charitable organizations. The preseason kickoff event has benefited entities such as the Miracle League Ball Field, Care to Learn, Boys and Girls Clubs and the Wounded Warrior Project.
 
The Bears finished lower than third in the league standings just 12 times in Guttin's tenure. Guttin directed Missouri State to six straight league titles in Mid-Continent play from 1984 through 1989. He has given MSU its first five Valley postseason tournament championships in 1996, 1997, 2015, 2018 and 2022. He was voted the MVC Coach of the Year in 1993, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2015, 2017 and 2018, and was selected the ABCA’s Division I Midwest Region Coach of the Year in 1997 and 2003.
 
Missouri State ran through MCC regular season and tourney play annually from 1983 through 1989. The Bears faltered only once, finishing as tourney runner-up in 1990, their final MCC season before moving to the Valley. Guttin was named MCC Coach of the Year each season from 1984 through 1989.
 
In 1986, Missouri State posted a then-program-best 47-14 record. In 1987, the 38-14 Bears got their first NCAA Division I tourney bid, playing in the West II Regional in Tempe, Ariz. In 1988, the 41-17 Bears became the first team to go through regular season MCC play undefeated, and in 1989 went 41-10 for the third best winning percentage in all of Division I baseball.
 
The 1995 Bears were second in the MVC Tournament and added an NCAA visit, playing in the West Regional in Fresno, Calif. In 1996, Missouri State won its first MVC tourney, capped by Guttin’s 500th career win, an 8-7 victory over top-ranked Wichita State in the winner’s bracket final. Missouri State won its first NCAA Division I tourney games, beating Long Beach State and UCLA to finish third in the Central I Regional in Austin, Texas.
 
The 1997 Bears repeated the MVC crown and knocked off Texas Tech and Nevada on the way to a runner-up finish in the NCAA Central Regional in Lubbock, Texas. Missouri State was at the Fayetteville regional in 1999, finishing second with wins over Clemson and Arkansas.
 
Guttin returned to Missouri State in 1982 after a year at Rend Lake College where he served as assistant coach to Kirk Champion as RLC claimed an Illinois JUCO sectional crown. Guttin was a Missouri State assistant under Rowe from 1979 to 1981, as Missouri State won its last MIAA title and made two NCAA appearances.
 
Guttin had two notable seasons as the Missouri State second baseman, coming from Mineral Area College. He earned MIAA all-conference honorable mention in 1977 as the Bears made their first NCAA Division II tournament appearance in seven years.
 
A University City, Mo., native, Guttin finished his undergraduate degree at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1978, and earned his master’s degree in 1984 at Truman State. He and his wife, Marianne, have three daughters; Lauren, Lindsey and Samantha; and two grandsons, Bradley and Brody.