Jerry Breaux will enter his sixth year as head coach at Drury in 2023 and his 30th season as a head coach at the collegiate level.
Last year, Breaux guided the Panthers into their first-ever NCAA-II Tournament as Drury reached the second round of the Midwest Regional and ended the year 37-17. The 37 wins set a program record and the Panthers went 21-7 to finish third in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, matching the team’s best-ever finish with the league competing as a single division.
In 2021, Breaux’s Panthers went 26-16, 19-9 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, and a third-place finish in the league. Drury also went on to win their opening round game in the GLVC Tournament and reached the conference semifinals for the first time.
Breaux has coached 12 all-conference performers, had four named all-region, and program’s first All-American. Pitcher Kristina Bettis was the GLVC Pitcher of the Year, the Midwest Region Pitcher of the Year and was named an All-American in 2022 after going 24-5, with a 1.08 ERA and 271 strikeouts. In 2019, outfielder Jacy Ummel was Drury’s first all-region selection in eight years.
All of Breaux’s teams have won a GLVC Team Academic Award and the 2019 team posted a 3.50 grade point average.
He guided the Panthers to their first-ever postseason wins in 2019 as they won twice in the GLVC tournament, and a 36-win season that year. He enters the 2023 season with a record of 109-70 at Drury and the Panthers have gone 63-47 in the GLVC.
Breaux became the Drury’s third head coach in program history in the summer of 2017 and returned to the Springfield area after a two-year stint at Louisiana State University at Alexandria where he went 99-22, won a pair of conference titles and qualified to the NAIA national tournament both years. In 2017, his team went 52-10, 27-1 in league play, and advanced to the NAIA World Series where the Generals finished third nationally.
He also spent 22 years as the head softball coach at Evangel University where he took over a program in its sixth year of existence in 1993 and produced 10 Heart of America Athletic Conference championships, nine appearances in NAIA regional tournaments and the 2006 NAIA Softball World Series during two decades. He coached the Crusaders to 640 of its 661 all-time wins in the program's first 28 years going 640-382-2. Breaux was named the NAIA Region V Coach of the Year twice as well as the Heart of America conference Coach of the Year six times. His teams at Evangel won a league-record six straight conference titles from 2004 to 2009 and Breaux was inducted into the Evangel University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014.
In addition to his team’s success, Breaux's players earned conference and national honors as well. He coached six players to Heart of America conference Player of the Year awards, had five named conference Pitcher of the Year, four were named league Newcomer of the Year, and two players won Freshman of the Year honors. He had two NAIA Region V Players of the Year in addition to 12 NAIA All-Americans, 141 all-conference award winners with 62 of them being named to the First Team. At LSU-A, Breaux coached seven NAIA All-Americans and had 13 named All-Red River Athletic Conference performers in two years.
His teams have also been successful academically. His 2008 Evangel team featured a 3.68 grade point average, the highest mark nationally in the NAIA and the second highest GPA at any level of the sport that year. Two of his Evangel teams won NAIA Team Scholar Awards, and 45 players earned national academic honors from the NAIA.
Breaux is one of only 16 active NCAA-II head coaches with 800 career wins as he has an overall record of 868-498-2. He exited the NAIA tied for fifth in all-time wins among active coaches. Within conference play, his teams have gone 391-164-1 during his 29-year career. Breaux was honored by the National Fast-Pitch Coaches Association for his 500th career win in 2011, his 600th win in 2014, his 700th career victory in 2017, and career win number 800 in 2021.
During his time in Springfield, Breaux served on the coaching staff of an area collegiate all-star team in 2008 that competed against the USA Olympic team, and he has coordinated instructional camps that featured former US Olympic players Crystl Bustos and Caitlin Lowe.
In addition to his duties as a head softball coach, Breaux served LSU-A as an assistant athletic director and was the recruiting coordinator for Evangel Athletics, assisting in the recruiting and admissions process for each of the university's 12 sports.
He is a 1982 graduate of Evangel University with degrees in Psychology and Theology, and he earned a Master's degree from Missouri State in Counseling Psychology in 1986.
Originally from Lake Charles, Louisiana, Breaux and his wife Mary reside in Ozark, Missouri.
