Former Florida Gator Johnny Wiggs is in his 19th season as the head coach of the Santa Fe College baseball team in Gainesville.
The soon to be Hall of Fame coach has led his teams to nine Mid-Florida Conference Championships, two FCSAA/NJCAA Region VIII State Tournament Championships, and two JUCO World Series Appearances, including 2009 when the Saints were national runners-up in Grand Junction, Colorado.
In 2022, he won his 500th game at Santa Fe College with a 6-1 win over Daytona State College on March 21. He then picked up career win No. 700 overall with a 9-1 win in the following game at Daytona State on March 23.
This past March 29, he won his 600th game with the Saints with a 12-3 win at Seminole State College in Sanford.
“I take a lot of pride in it, of course having sort of tried to fill the shoes of the great (former coach) Harry Tholen who is sort of my baseball mentor, gave me my first job as an assistant coach way back in ’92 when I was still playing professional baseball,” Wiggs said. “He gave me the disease, the coaching disease. I always wanted to stay in the game after I finished playing and I did it initially just to be able to continue to compete.”
On the same day, he won the 800th game of his career with a 15-4 victory in game two of the doubleheader.
“It just tells you I’ve been around a little while,” said Wiggs, who won 199 games at Polk Community College. “I used to think I was one of the youngest coaches here in the state and now I think I’m the third oldest and the third longest-tenured guy, but I’ve been fortunate to be around a lot of good players and I’ve had a lot of great assistant coaches, so those wins are definitely just as much theirs as they are mine.”
But the competition goes beyond the wins and losses.
“Over time, you learn it’s not about you, it’s about helping young men get to experience the same things that I got to experience,” Wiggs said. “I was fortunate I got to play at the junior college level, then play at the University of Florida, and then I played five years professionally (Mariners, Tigers and Red Sox) all the way up to Triple-A, but over time it’s sharing those experiences with young people and trying to give them the same opportunities that I had.”
Over the past 18 seasons, Wiggs has sent 177 players to a four-year institution. He has had two players sign free-agent deals after their time at Santa Fe and seven players have been drafted.
Wiggs, a left-handed pitcher who helped the Gators to the 1988 SEC Championship, East Regional Championship and their first-ever trip to the College World Series, will be inducted into the 2025 NJCAA Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in May.
“This honor accurately reflects ‘excellence in coaching baseball’ and for me and our Athletic Department this is so clearly evident in the young men he has led the lives they now live,” said Santa Fe College Athletics Director Chanda Stebbins. “We are so proud of Coach Wiggs and all that this honor represents.”
He will join Tholen in the prestigious club.
“It’s a longevity award for sure,” Wiggs said. “They don’t ask you how many games you lost, but I’ve lost especially when I was cutting my teeth at Polk and trying to figure out how to do this thing. We’ve had a lot of success here at Santa Fe and the college has given us a lot of support. Being able to recruit to Santa Fe College, being able to recruit to the city of Gainesville, has been fairly easy…Santa Fe College is considered one of the best academic junior colleges in the country. It’s been a pleasure and just been real fortunate to spend the last 19 years here.”
Wiggs has been able to do it in one of the toughest states to compete in.
Currently, five teams are nationally ranked in the NJCAA DI Baseball Poll (No. 7 Florida Southwestern State College, No. 8 Indian River State College, No. 11 Gulf Coast State College, No. 12 Northwest Florida State College, and No. 18 College of Central Florida).
State College of Florida-Manatee-Sarasota is receiving votes.
“The competition in Florida at every level is tremendous, whether it’s the high school, junior college, at the four-year level, it’s one of the reasons why so many people around the country want to come to the South, come to Florida to play, to play against the best,” said Wiggs, whose team is fighting for an at-large berth in next month’s FCSAA State Tournament.
On Thursday, the Saints (20-22, 11-14 Citrus Conference) defeated State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, 15-7, to keep their postseason hopes alive.
Santa Fe College is tied for eighth in their conference and two games behind Eastern Florida State College and Polk State College (12-12) with eight games to play, including a key doubleheader on Saturday at SCF, which is currently tied for third at 15-10.
The top five teams from the Citrus Conference make the tournament, along with two from the Panhandle Conference, and the eighth team comes from a playoff game between the sixth-place team in the Citrus and the third-place team in the Panhandle.
The FCSAA DI Baseball Championship is hosted by the top four seeds (May 2-5), with the four winners advancing to the DI Baseball Championship Round in Charlotte Sports Park Port Charlotte (May 9-12).
The winner of that tournament advances to the JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado.
“As everybody will tell you it’s really difficult to get out of the state and if you get out of the state you usually have a chance to do well at nationals,” Wiggs said. “Our teams have always done good once they’ve gone to the Junior College World Series and it’s because we’re primed and prepared after playing such great competition here all year.”
They’re still mathematically in it with eight conference games remaining.
Their last two series after Saturday’s doubleheader will be against St. Petersburg College and Hillsborough Community College, who are both at the bottom of the conference standings.
“Maybe we can put a little run together like Florida did last year,” Wiggs said. “Florida barely snuck into the NCAA Tournament and, of course, ends up in Omaha, Nebraska.”