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It was Long Beach State or nothing for Jon Strauss.
After serving as the pitching coach for CSUN last season, Strauss was considering calling it a career after more than two decades as a college baseball coach. There was perhaps only one phone call that could have kept him in the dugout, and that was from current LBSU head coach, TJ Bruce.
“I was kind of on the fence if I still wanted to do this, and when I talked to TJ, I told him, ‘The only thing I want to do is I want to coach here, or I want to do something else,” Strauss said. “I’m at that point in my career that I just kind of wanted to give back to this program.”
That conversation led Strauss to be named the Dirtbags’ new pitching coach for the 2026 season, which will begin his fourth stint on the LBSU coaching staff. He previously served as an assistant from 1995-2000, another season in 2006, then coached alongside Bruce during his third stint from 2008-09.
“Jon is a proven winner and developer of pitchers and baseball players,” Bruce said in a release. “He has a history of turning good talent into high-end Major League Baseball prospects.”
A former Dirtbags catcher, Strauss wore the black & gold in 1993 and 1994, enjoying a trip to Omaha during the memorable ‘93 season. Strauss spent a season in the New York Yankees’ minor league system before completing his psychology degree at Long Beach State in 1996.
His love for the program is obvious from his repeated returns to the Beach, and he’s loved hearing from former teammates, players, and coaches who’ve reached out since his hiring was made public.
“There’s so many feelings. I think the great thing is the outreach from all the alumni after the announcement,” Strauss said. “Guys I haven’t talked to in years and just seeing how excited they are. I mean, I’m one of them. Obviously, I probably wasn’t as good a player as most of them, but I was one of them. I wore the uniform, I sweat, I competed. I got to make a couple trips to Omaha. And I was a part of a lot of their lives.”
His coaching resume is a lengthy one, with stops at San Jose State, Loyola Marymount, and a head coaching gig at Glendale College, where he earned Western State Conference Coach of the Year honors.
Perhaps his most successful tenure as pitching coach came with Baylor University from 2016-22, helping the Bears to three consecutive NCAA Regional appearances in that time. Prior to his time in Waco, he was the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Pepperdine from 2010-15, and had a dozen pitchers selected in the MLB Draft in that time.
“Jon has done this through a combination of valuing player relations, great knowledge of body movements and player mechanics, as well as the much-needed analytic component necessary for connecting with the modern-day player,” said Bruce in a release. “Jon has been a high-end recruiter/developer and proven winner who has been to Omaha multiple times, who has great relationships within the baseball community. As a former Dirtbag player and coach, Jon is a Dirtbag through and through. We are excited to add the Strauss family to one of the nation’s premier brands, Dirtbag Baseball.”
With alumni serving as two of the top members of the coaching staff, there’s an added sense of familiarity, both with one another but also with the passionate alumni base of former players. Whether they were 49ers or Dirtbags when they put on that Long Beach State uniform, the pride within the LBSU Baseball community has endured for more than 70 years.
“I think there’s a sense of comfort with me and TJ, just because they know that we respect the program, we wore the uniform,” Strauss explained. “I think that’s very comforting to a lot of the alumni. I’m not saying I’m the greatest coach in the world, but I think they know that it’s in the right hands. There’s no one else in the world that wants this program to succeed more than us and have, hopefully, some capability to do that.”
