{"id":740779,"date":"2026-07-02T01:39:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T01:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/740779\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T01:39:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T01:39:22","slug":"arkansas-baseball-coach-dave-van-horn-elected-to-abca-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/740779\/","title":{"rendered":"Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn elected to ABCA Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

FAYETTEVILLE \u2014 Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn<\/a> added another hall of fame honor to his resume Wednesday, this time at the national level.<\/p>\n

The American Baseball Coaches Association announced the 65-year-old Van Horn will be one of seven inductees for its 2027 class. Van Horn will be formally inducted Jan. 8 at the ABCA Convention in Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Van Horn, who was unavailable for comment Wednesday morning, is the second Arkansas coach to be elected to the ABCA Hall of Fame. Norm DeBriyn<\/a>, who coached Van Horn in 1982 and hired him to his staff as a graduate assistant from 1985-88, was inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame in 2003, the year after he retired and was replaced by Van Horn as the Razorbacks\u2019 head coach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DeBriyn was also inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame<\/a> this year. Inductions into the ABCA Hall of Fame and College Baseball Hall of Fame are generally considered the highest lifetime achievement honors for a college baseball coach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ABCA Hall of Fame is special, DeBriyn said, because inclusion is decided by other coaches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like a fraternity,\u201d DeBriyn said. \u201cYou know each other. You run into each other on the field or off the field or in the recruiting circles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI went in in ’03 and I just felt a tremendous amount of respect, I guess. It\u2019s just a really good feeling to have your counterparts voting for you and having confidence in what you\u2019ve done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is commonplace for opposing coaches to refer to Van Horn as a \u201chall of famer\u201d before and after their games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the Razorbacks\u2019 appearance at the NCAA Lawrence Regional in May, Kansas coach Dan Fitzgerald called Van Horn \u201ca first ballot hall of fame coach.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In April, UAPB coach Logan Stout said of Van Horn, \u201cIf he\u2019s not in every baseball hall of fame, something\u2019s wrong. That guy is a legend.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

R.D. Spiehs, the Tarleton State pitching coach who played for Van Horn at Nebraska, said prior to their game in February, \u201cHe’s a hall of famer. He’s been doing it at a high level for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Horn completed his 38th season as a college head coach and his 24th season with the Razorbacks this year. He has a 974-494 record at Arkansas and is the second-winningest coach in program history behind DeBriyn, who won 1,161 games in 33 seasons from 1970-2002.<\/p>\n

Van Horn began his head coaching career at Texarkana Community College from 1989-93. In 1994 he won the NCAA Division II national championship in his only season at Central Missouri State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDave was one of those guys that came up, I don\u2019t want to say the hard way, but he jumped through all the hoops,\u201d DeBriyn said. \u201cHe never really had anything handed to him at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Horn transitioned to Division I as the head coach at Northwestern State from 1995-97 and Nebraska from 1998-2002. In 32 seasons as a Division I coach he has taken 10 teams to the College World Series (8 at Arkansas and 2 at Nebraska). He has the most College World Series appearances and most Division I victories (1,294) among active coaches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Including his JUCO and Division II seasons, Van Horn has a career record of 1,559-734.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arkansas (3), Northwestern State (2) and Nebraska (1) all won regular-season conference championships under Van Horn. He also led Nebraska to three Big 12 Tournament titles from 1999-2001, Arkansas to its lone SEC Tournament title in 2021 and the Razorbacks to eight SEC West championships until divisions were disbanded in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNebraska had never been to Omaha and he took them there twice and just did a tremendous job. When I retired, he really had it good at Nebraska,\u201d DeBriyn said. \u201cHe wanted some things and finally [longtime Arkansas athletics director] Frank Broyles put it in writing<\/a>, gave him what he wanted and he ended up coming. He took this program to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo\" \u00a0Dave Van Horn (left) and Norm DeBriyn speak prior to Van Horn’s induction into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019, in Fayetteville. (Andy Shupe\/NWA Democrat-Gazette)
\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three Arkansas players \u2014 outfielder Andrew Benintendi in 2015, pitcher Kevin Kopps in 2021 and shortstop Wehiwa Aloy in 2025 \u2014 have won the Golden Spikes Award during Van Horn\u2019s tenure. His program has produced multiple players who have gone on to become MLB All-Stars or win major individual awards at that level, and under Van Horn the Razorbacks have had 11 first-round MLB Draft picks with more expected next weekend.<\/p>\n

Van Horn is one of three active coaches who will be inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame next year. NAIA coaches Tim Mead of Walsh University in Ohio and Beauford Sanders of Campbellsville University in Kentucky are entering their 44th and 37th seasons, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Others who will be inducted in 2027 are retired coaches Ritch Price of Kansas, Scott Berry of Southern Miss, Brian Shoop of UAB and Birmingham-Southern (NAIA), and Stu Fritz of Division II Hope College in Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to ABCA guidelines, hall of fame candidates must have been a head coach with active ABCA membership for at least 15 years, made \u201cprofessional and personal contributions\u201d to the ABCA, and \u201csignificantly contributed to the advancement of baseball at the local, national or international level.\u201d Candidates are also evaluated on character, ethics and leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ABCA is at least Van Horn\u2019s sixth hall of fame honor, and the fourth as a coach. He was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2019<\/a> and the UA Sports Hall of Honor in 2024 for his work with the Razorbacks, and was inducted into the Central Missouri State University Hall of Fame in 2000.<\/p>\n

Van Horn was inducted as a player into the Winnetonka (Mo.) High School Alumni Hall of Fame and the Ban Johnson League Hall of Fame the Kansas City area. Prior to his only season as a player at Arkansas, Van Horn was a two-time All-American at McLennan College in Texas, and earlier this year his No. 8 jersey was retired<\/a> by that program.<\/p>\n

Matt Jones<\/a><\/p>\n

mjones@wholehogsports.com<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Matt Jones is the managing editor of WholeHogSports.com and hosts the WholeHogSports Daily Podcast. He is a member of the Football Writers Association of America and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, and voter for the Heisman Trophy. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FAYETTEVILLE \u2014 Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn added another hall of fame honor to his resume Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2289],"tags":[5,648,1694,2341],"class_list":["post-740779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-college-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-college-baseball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-baseball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116847835004053695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}