Entering his sixth season at the helm in 2010, Appalachian State University head coach Chris Pollard has engineered the turnaround of a program that sustained back-to-back 10-win seasons into a team that ranks among the upper echelon in the baseball-rich Southern Conference.

The rebirth of Appalachian baseball came when Pollard took the reins of the program on July 20, 2004. In five seasons at ASU, Pollard is already the second-winningest head coach in the school's 107-year baseball history with 132 victories. He has led the Mountaineers to no fewer than 32 triumphs in each of the past three seasons, giving the program three-straight 30-win campaigns for the first time since 1984-86.

Most recently, the 33 wins posted by Pollard's 2009 squad matched ASU's highest win total in 23 years and its 15 Southern Conference victories were the program's most since it won the league title in 1986. However, the reemergence of Mountaineer baseball began in earnest in 2006 — Pollard's second season at the helm — when he led the Apps to 24 wins, four more than the previous two seasons combined. The 14-win improvement from 2005 marked the third-biggest turnaround in terms of total victories in school history, behind only the 1981 (+18 wins) and 1969 (+16 wins) teams.

Additionally, after not qualifying for postseason play in five of the seven years prior to his arrival, Pollard’s teams have won SoCon Tournament games following each of the past four regular seasons. Highlighting the run of postseason success was a thrilling 11-10 win over top-seeded College of Charleston in 2007, which eliminated the regular-season conference champs from SoCon Tournament and likely kept the Cougars, who advanced to Super Regional play the year before, out of the NCAA postseason mix.

Despite the impressive victories, Pollard’s tenure at ASU has been punctuated by his top-notch recruiting classes. Each crop of newcomers that Pollard and his staff have brought in have ranked among the top classes in North Carolina, with all-Americans, state players of the year and highly sought-after transfers from across the Southeast dotting his rosters. Highlighting the impressive collection of players that Pollard has recruited and coached in his short time in the High Country are seven players that have been selected in the past two Major League Baseball Drafts.

After Appalachian went without an MLB draftee for a dozen years, three members of Pollard's initial ASU recruiting class — David Rubinstein, Jason Rook and Garrett Sherrill — were selected in the first 12 rounds of the 2008 MLB Draft (Rubinstein – 11th round, Pittsburgh Pirates; Rook – 12th round, Baltimore Orioles; Sherrill – 12th round , Milwaukee Brewers). Following last season, three more members of Pollard's first class of signees were drafted — Zach Quate (14th round, Tampa Bay Rays), Rand Smith (20th round, Florida Marlins) and Isaac Harrow (24th round, New York Yankees) — while Josh Dowdy (38th round, Baltimore Orioles) gave ASU a school-record four MLB draftees in 2009.

Prior to coming to Appalachian, Pollard was the head coach at Pfeiffer University from 2000-04. He arrived at ASU fresh off of coaching Pfeiffer to the winningest season in school history, a 41-14 campaign that culminated with its second-straight CVAC regular-season championship and a berth in the 2004 NCAA Division II South Atlantic Regional. In addition to the school-record 41 victories, the Falcons reached as high as No. 2 in the South Atlantic Regional rankings and No. 10 in the nation according to Collegiate Baseball newspaper.

For his efforts, Pollard was named the 2004 CVAC Coach of the Year both by the league’s coaches and the American Baseball Coaches Association.
Pollard took over a Pfeiffer squad which had suffered through losing campaigns in three of the four seasons before he arrived in Misenheimer in 2000 and immediately began a rebuilding project which led to the Falcons’ record improving in each of his five seasons as head coach.

After leading the squad to its first winning season in five years with a 25-22 record in 2002, Pollard earned his first championship as a head coach by coaching the Falcons to a 33-17 overall mark and the CVAC Tournament title in 2003. His 140 career victories are the second-most in Pfeiffer history.

In addition to his duties as head baseball coach, Pollard served as Pfeiffer’s director of athletics for the 2003-04 year. In that capacity, he oversaw the daily supervision of Pfeiffer’s 16 varsity sports, including NCAA compliance, budget and salary management, public relations, fund-raising and facility oversight.

Prior to his stint at Pfeiffer, Pollard served as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Davidson. His main responsibilities for the DC staff included serving as the Wildcats’ pitching coach and recruiting coordinator. Administratively, Pollard took on duties as Davidson’s assistant director of game management, which included work in ticket sales, event administration, gameday parking and facility oversight.

Pollard also gained coaching experience in the NCAA-certified Coastal Plain Summer League, as the head coach of the Durham Braves in 1998 and pitching coach with the Rocky Mount Rock Fish in 1997.

As a player at Davidson from 1993-96, Pollard earned distinction as just the third pitcher in program history to win 20 games in his career. He ranks among the all-time top 10 at Davidson with 20 wins (3rd all-time at DC), 168 strikeouts (8th), 59 appearances (t-7th), 309 innings pitched (4th), 39 starts (6th), 18 complete games (t-7th) and two shutouts (t-3rd). As a sophomore, he defeated both No. 1 Georgia Tech and No. 25 Western Carolina, while he tied an NCAA record as a junior by earning victories in both ends of a doubleheader versus Georgia Southern.

After graduation, Pollard played professionally in both the Western League and the highly regarded Northern League before returning to Davidson to begin his coaching career.

Pollard earned a B.A. in psychology from Davidson in 1996, with a concentration in child and adolescent development and a Master’s in physical education/health education from Mississippi State in 2004.

His wife, Stephanie, is a 1997 Davidson graduate and a teacher at Blowing Rock Elementary School. The couple and their sons, Thomas (4) and Brady (2), reside in Boone.