BATON ROUGE — LSU softball head coach Yvette Girouard announced the hiring of Adam Roorbach as Director of Softball Operations for the upcoming season on Tuesday.
Roorbach joins the nationally ranked Tiger program from Houston, where he served as an assistant coach for the 2007 season. No stranger to the softball community, he has spent three years as an assistant softball coach at the Division I level after spending four seasons as a head coach at the NAIA and junior college levels.
Although this is a new position within the softball department, Roorbach already has ties to the Tiger coaching staff after working with current LSU assistant coach Megan Smith for one season at Western Carolina.
“We are extremely grateful to the administration for the Director of Softball Operations position,” said LSU head coach Yvette Girouard. “Adam was an assistant coach for Megan Smith at Western Carolina, thus ensuring a connection to our existing staff. He has already proven to be a hard worker and one that wants to see LSU Softball succeed in every way. He will be an invaluable member to our staff, team and our support group – The DiamondBackers.”
As an assistant coach with the Cougars last season, he helped the program to its Conference USA Regular Season and Tournament championship in school history, advancing to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2004. After knocking off UL-Lafayette and Texas A&M, Houston advanced to the final day of competition at the College Station Regional before falling twice to Aggies to end its season with a school record 44 wins.
Prior to his one-year stint at Houston, Roorbach was an assistant coach at Western Carolina under current LSU assistant coach Megan Smith, who was the Catamounts’ head coach. In its inaugural season in 2005, Western Carolina posted a 41-20 record and won the Southern Conference Championship. The Catamounts also ranked third nationally with 81 home runs and 12th in the NCAA with a .476 slugging percentage. Three WCU players were ranked nationally statistically and two were named to the NFCA All-Southeastern Region team.
In 2005, Roorbach served as an assistant coach at Nicholls State. Working primarily with the Lady Colonel hitters and outfielders, Nicholls set a school record with 31 home runs and improved its team batting average by 29 points over the previous season.
Roorbach moved to the Division I level at Nicholls after serving for three seasons as the head coach at NAIA affiliate Bethel College in Mishawaka, Ind. From 2002-2004, he compiled a 102-56 record and won three consecutive Mid-Central Conference Championships and qualified for the NAIA Regional and National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) National Tournaments all three years.
Earning 2003 Mid-Central Conference Coach of the Year honors, Roorbach guided 14 Pilot players to All-Mid-Central Conference awards. Equally as impressive, all three of his teams were awarded the prestigious NFCA Top 10 Academic Team Award and 17 of his players were named NFCA Academic All-Americans.
Prior to arriving at Bethel, Roorbach spent one season as the head coach at Andrew College in Cuthbert, Ga. In his only season, he guided the Tigers to a 14-18 record, a 13-win improvement over the previous years’ 1-32 mark. In addition, he faced Smith on the field for the first time as Andrew College took on Young Harris College, where Smith was the head coach.
Roorbach graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University in 1999 with a double major in business administration and sports management, he went on to earn his master’s degree in physical education from Eastern Illinois in 2000. While attending Indiana Wesleyan, he served as an assistant softball coach and also the school’s sports information director.