Anthony D’Albora is set to anchor the baseball coaching staff at Los Medanos College for what many people might say is the relatively young age of 26-years-old.
Although D’Albora is young he is not inexperienced, having coached collegiately for eight years.
“He’s been around the game for a long time,” said Athletic Director Richard Villegas. “He has earned his way to this level of coaching… He does all the little things that make the program successful that people don’t see.”
D’Albora focuses on the core values of the program: a family oriented group that works hard to better themselves as students, as people and as players.
Born and raised in Pleasanton, D’Albora enjoyed being outside and active. Going to San Francisco Giants games with his father and grandfather are some his fondest memories. Baseball stuck to D’Albora. After graduating high school he enrolled into Chico State, a Division II school, where he became a student assistant coach.
“The goal as I started [playing baseball] was to play at the highest level. So you get to that point where you tell yourself, or somebody else tells you, that you’re not good enough to play at that highest level anymore, [but] there still was that passion inside of me that didn’t want to stop being a part of baseball,” said D’Albora. “So I have the opportunity now to challenge myself and try coaching at the highest level possible, as well as helping other people be great baseball players as I was originally trying to make myself.”
D’Albora competed in two College World Series during his stay at Chico before transferring to the University of San Francisco, a Division I school, and earning his master’s degree in sports management. In his time as an assistant coach at USF his team captured a victory on the road in a National Collegiate Athletic Association regional game over the highly ranked University of California Los Angeles.
D’Albora came to LMC last year as an assistant coach, and after the departure of Coach Casey Coakley he is ready to take reigns as head coach.
“I think everybody, as well as myself, was happy to hear that Coach D was going to get the job,” said sophomore catcher Chad Highberger. “We think we are going to go big places with him.”
D’Albora thinks the team can make playoffs for the second season in a row in a conference that is getting better every year. The Mustangs had a good run at the end of last year, but D’Albora wants to give the team a chance at a state championship this time around.
He said he is determined to become the best coach he can be. But winning games and pennants to him are not his biggest goals.
What he wants most at the end of the day is to have a positive impact on his student athletes.
D’Albora said he wants the time they spend with him to lead to an ability to earn scholarships as they move on with their college careers, and that some will even realize professional ambitions. To him these things will be more rewarding than any trophy.
“I think he’s a good coach,” said Villegas. “He runs a good program. What you have to understand is on the field is the easy part, it’s all the office work that he does a real good job of.”
D’Albora and his wife have been married for one and a half years now, with no plans for children at the moment. He says he has enough of them already.
“I got plenty of kids to worry about out here for now,” said D’Albora. “I’m sure my wife would say I’m enough of a kid she’s got to worry about too.”
