Former Cubs pitcher Randy Wells named new baseball coach at Althoff

A love of baseball and desire to pass on the experiences and information gained throughout his playing career has former Chicago Cubs pitcher and Belleville East graduate Randy Wells fired up about being the new varsity baseball coach at Althoff High School.

Wells replaces former Althoff coach Brett Isaacs, who retired from coaching this spring after 20 seasons. Isaacs guided the Crusaders to a Class 2A sectional final appearance this spring and finished his career with a 376-256 record that included four regional titles.

“I love teaching baseball,” said Wells, who recently opened the Midwest Indoor Team Training facility in Belleville offering youth baseball and softball instruction. “I love making an impact in kids’ lives and helping them to get to a level they’re trying to achieve. The flip side of that is when you work with a kid once a week or once every two weeks, you never get to see how they progress unless you catch one of their games or their parents tell you about it.

“I’m looking forward to working with them consistently over a period of time, really investing in their futures and their baseball futures. Seeing it all play out.”

The 32-year-old Wells has coached previously at Lindenwood University in Belleville as an assistant. He was 28-32 in five seasons as a major league pitcher with the Cubs and Toronto Blue Jays from 2008 to 2012.

“Coaching at Lindenwood kind of got the fire started a little bit,” Wells said. “Then I opened up the training facility and have had success and enjoyed doing that. When the opportunity came up with this it was perfect timing for me to get my face back in the community, so to speak. It was really appealing.”

His best season was a 12-10 record with the Cubs in 2009, when he had a 3.05 ERA. He was 8-14 the following season with 144 strikeouts in 194 1/3 innings and his last major-league appearance was June 26, 2012.

He’s not the first former major leaguer to coach a metro-east high school baseball team. Former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Danny Cox was the head coach briefly at New Athens several years ago.

Wells was drafted as a catcher out of Southwestern Illinois College by the Cubs, then switched to pitching in the minor leagues and that was his path to the major leagues.

As a Belleville East graduate, he admitted it might be strange putting on an Althoff uniform for the first time.

“It’s just like the Cubs-Cardinals deal, I’ve gotten used to that,” said Wells, who grew up a Cards fan but later played for the rival Cubs. “I love Belleville East and they are a great school and I’m happy about my time there. But when you get an opportunity to coach, you’ve got to take it. I live on the west end (of Belleville) and it was a good fit.”

Althoff Athletic Director Greg Leib, who recently replaced former AD Mike Dori, said Wells was the best of four talented applicants that were interviewed.

“He seemed really organized and on top of it,” Leib said. “He had some vision as to how he sees the team and where he wants to take it. He’s got a wealth of experience with all of his background of being drafted as a catcher and then converting to a pitcher, so that helped his cause a great deal.

“What really jumped out was the love of the game and wanting to give something back. He just wants to pay that back, it’s not about the glory or anything. He’s already had all that. He wanted to teach a game that he loves to the kids and carry that on.”

This will be Wells’ first time as a head coach, but he’s been around successful athletes and coaches his entire life. His father, Forry Wells Sr., was a tight end at Kansas State. Wells’ older brother, Forry Wells, was a punter and baseball player at the University of Illinois who reached the Class AA level with the Colorado Rockies’ organization.

“Being a coach and being around the people I’ve been around I’m pretty confident to see how this develops,” Randy Wells said. “If you want to be successful at anything, you have to filter through what works for you. I can’t even count how many major league coaches I’ve had, college coaches, high school coaches ... I’ve taken a piece from each and every one of them and developed my own style.”

Wells admires the program Isaacs built over 20 years. He hopes to reach out to area feeder schools and offer camps and clinics to help get Althoff’s name out there even more.

While Wells knows how hard it is to reach the major leagues, he believes the things he learned throughout his own life and career are valuable enough to be passed on to others.

“Baseball gave me a life that I could only dream about,” he said. “I worked my butt off, but it was still a game. I was exposed to the game at an early age with my brother and my dad, so I knew that I had seen and been around the right way to play the game.

“I saw how it was coached and saw how it was played. When I came back and was playing high school baseball I was more away of it. Hopefully I can share that same dream with these kids.”

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 11:07 AM with the headline "Former Cubs pitcher Randy Wells named new baseball coach at Althoff."