Bill Walkenbach enters his 11th season at the helm of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball program in the 2026-27 academic year, after leading the Stags to back-to-back 35-15 seasons in 2025 and 2026, which is the highest win total in program history. The Stags set a new program record with 32 wins in 2024, and then surpassed it in the following year,Â
Walkenbach has also led CMS to the NCAA Tournament in the last three seasons, the first three bids since 1996, while capturing the program's first two regional titles in 2025 and 2026, and competing in their first two Super Regionals.
Over his first nine full seasons at the helm (not counting a COVID-shortened 2020), the Stags have improved or maintained its win total from the year before. During that span, he has turned the program around from 7-32 the season before he took over to 35-15Â in 2025 and 2026. The Stags improved to 11 wins in his debut season, then to 16, 18, 19, 24, 28, 32 and now 35 two straight years.
The turnaround is no surprise, as Walkenbach has a history of achieving unprecedented success at his previous coaching stops. Prior to CMS, he served seven years as the head baseball coach at NCAA Division I Cornell University, where he led the Big Red to its first-ever Ivy League Championship in 2012 and set single season school records with 31 wins overall and going 14-6 in conference play. The team won the Lou Gehrig Division of the Ivy League in 2009 and 2012. Â Academically, the Big Red baseball team was recognized for being in the top 10 percent of Division I baseball for all seven years under Walkenbach.
Before his tenure at Cornell, Walkenbach was the head coach of the Division III Franklin & Marshall baseball program in Lancaster, Penn. Under his tutelage, the Diplomats won two regular season Centennial Conference championships in 2006 and 2007 and achieved a 69-42 overall record, the highest percentage during any three-year period in program history. The team finished the 2006 season ranked No. 13 in Division III, the highest ranking for the program to date.
Walkenbach completed his Master of Sports Administration at Georgia State while on staff as an assistant coach at Emory University for the 2002 and 2003 seasons. In 2003, Emory was a Division III World Series participant, finishing the season ranked No. 5 in the nation.
Walkenbach earned his bachelor’s degree at Cornell and was a four-year All-Ivy shortstop selection including earning Rookie of the Year honors in 1995. He appears 17 times in the career record book for Cornell Baseball and was the former home run record holder with 21 during his career. He was inducted into Cornell’s Hall of Fame in 2010.
