BEAUMONT, Texas – Lamar University hitting coach and recruiting coordinator Scott Hatten has been promoted to associate head coach announced head coach Will Davis Friday afternoon. Hatten has served as a coach with the Cardinals for the past 24 seasons following a standout playing career for the Red and White.
 
Hatten played a key role in helping lead the Cardinals to one of their best seasons in program history. Big Red rolled to a 44-15 (.746) record, which included a 17-7 (.708) Southland Conference mark and a regular-season conference title – the program's first since 2024. Before season's end, the Cardinals found themselves ranked among the nation's top 25 in three different polls.
 
"This is certainly long overdue," said Davis. "Coach Hatten has been a part of almost half of the seasons in Lamar history and that kind of loyalty is really hard to find. It Isn't just about longevity though, it's about results and he has gotten them time and time again. Just last year our hitters tied the single-season home record here."
 
Over the course of his time with the Cardinals, Hatten has helped produce 86 All-Southland selections and 29 SLC all-tournament players. Those numbers have only gotten stronger in recent years. The 2024 season saw Hatten produce three of the league's top 10 hitters in terms of batting average, three in the top 12 in terms of doubles and three in the top 10 in home runs including River Orsak who finished the year tied for the most in the Southland (18). Orsak's 18 long balls also tied for the school's single-season mark of 18.
 
Those numbers coming on the heels of a 2023 campaign that saw Ryan Snell dominate the league with a .317 batting average with 17 home runs and 58 runs batted in to be named to multiple All-America teams as well as the Southland Conference Player of the Year. He would go on to be named a finalist for the Buster Posey Award and be drafted in the seventh round of the MLB Amateur Draft by the Washington Nationals.
 
Serving as the Cardinals' recruiting coordinator, Lamar has become a constant in the national recruit rankings. Hatten has helped put together seven of the highest-ranked recruiting classes in program history. After landing a haul which was rated 73^rd nationally in 2017, Hatten followed that up with a 2018 class that led the Southland and ranked among the nation's top 100 according to Perfect Game. In the past three years alone, the Cardinals have landed the nation's 7^th, 11^th and 9^th-best junior college recruiting classes.