Reed Peters, the head baseball coach at University of the Pacific, died Thursday, the school announced on Friday.
He was 60.
While an exact cause of death was not disclosed, the school said Peters’ death came “following a courageous battle with illness.”
“No amount of words could possibly convey the tremendous sadness we all feel at the passing of Coach Peters. Our thoughts and prayers are with Audrey, Cade, Beau, Drew, and the entire Peters family,” Pacific athletic director Adam Tschuor said in a statement.
Peters, who last month led the Tigers to their first WCC Tournament appearance, became the head coach of Pacific two years ago and led the team to back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since 2018-19.
After going 8-16 in the West Coast Conference in 2025, the Tigers had a bounce-back year in conference play, going 15-11-1.
Pacific finished third in the WCC for hitting with a .279 team batting average and seventh for pitching with a team ERA of 6.13.
“Reed was with us for only two seasons, but his impact will forever be felt. When we first met, he promised to take the Tigers to new heights, and he did just that with our finest WCC performance to date, our best year this decade, and one of our highest-achieving seasons ever,” Tschuor said in the statement. “He will be greatly missed, and we shall all continue to strive to ensure the program lives up to what he built.”
Before coaching at Pacific, Peters’ presence was felt all across the Stockton area as he spent 17 years coaching baseball at San Joaquin Delta Community College and led the school to six state championship appearances, winning two of them in 2011 and 2018.
In 1987, Peters, who played high school ball in Denver, was selected out of UNLV in the 12th round by the California Angels as an outfielder and spent seven years in the minors playing in the Angels and Giants organizations.
“Skip was the greatest coach I’ll ever play for,” former Pacific infielder Brendan O’Sullivan said. “One of the most caring and special people around the game of baseball. He always wanted the best for everyone who played for him and cared to make us all better men.”
Reed’s twin brother, Rex, played three seasons in the Dodgers organization.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
