Fairhope coach Stu Fuller, center, and Mobile Christian coach Talley Haines, far right, meet at home plate before a game in 2022. Fuller was named the Leopards’ coach on Tuesday, succeeding Haines. (Photo by Mike Kittrell/al.com)
By JIMMY WIGFIELD
Hall of Famer Stu Fuller, who has 816 career victories and developed more than 100 college players, has been named Mobile Christian’s new baseball coach, Head of School Clint Mitchell said Tuesday.
Fuller, 60, who left Fairhope as its head coach in 2022 and served as an assistant at Saraland in 2023 and 2024, succeeds Talley Haines, who won five state championships with the Leopards and resigned last week.
“I have truly missed it,” said Fuller, who was inducted into the Alabama Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2021. “I’ve had numerous opportunities over the last three years and the fit wasn’t quite there in each opportunity. In this circumstance, I had no qualms whatsoever. What I wanted in the program and what (Mobile Christian) wanted was really a great fit, my personal beliefs and theirs, their goals for the program.”
Fuller got away from coaching this year to watch his son pitch for Valdosta State.
He had heart surgery to replace a valve in 2010 and had to have it replaced again in 2021 when an infection set in but said he is healthy and energetic.
“My health is immaculate and I am good to go,” Fuller said. “I’m in better shape right now than I have been in the last 30 years.”
While the Leopards were an uncharacteristic 10-19 this year when Haines returned from retirement for a year, Fuller said wholesale changes are unnecessary.
“When we go in, we’re going to evaluate players, how things have been done in the past, the way I want to do things,” Fuller said. “We will blend to what’s best for the kids and try to sustain what this program has done in the last 11 years. I have the utmost respect for every relationship with many of the prior coaches. I just hope I can fill those shoes and provide what these kids need.”
Six of Fuller’s former players have played professional baseball and at least 130 played past high school. At Fairhope alone, Fuller produced 18 Division I pitchers.
“One of my strengths through the years is developing players and making them better,” he said.
In an email to Mobile Christian baseball parents, Mitchell referenced those successes.
“A program with a prominent history deserves a leader who knows how to run a top-tier program,” Mitchell wrote. “The ability to develop athletes and find opportunities for them to compete at the next level was important to us.”
Mitchell said Fuller will also build good men.
“There’s the baseball aspect but there’s also a major character and spiritual component at Mobile Christian,” Mitchell said, “that is an opportunity for people who work at our institution to really make an impact that’s going to be not just lifelong but hopefully even after our time on Earth.”
Mitchell wasted no time focusing on Fuller in his search to replace Haines.
“We had an opportunity to get a really good baseball coach, so we just went ahead and went for it,” he said. “He reached out to us when he learned that the position was open. We met with him last week and was just very impressed by his vision for what the future of Mobile Christian baseball could look like. I went to our search committee and said, ‘This is the route we need to go.’”
Fuller, a native of Starkville, Miss., played under South Alabama coach Steve Kittrell, who remembered being impressed by Fuller when he pitched for Lurleen B. Wallace Community College.
“I saw a bulldog on the mound, I know that,” Kittrell said. “We were playing a fall game and he was in junior college pitching. I think the game was 3-2. I’m not sure if they beat us or we beat them but after the game I offered him a full scholarship. And once he came to South, he had tremendous character and personality. He had a good mind for the game and he knew how to pitch. He was just one of the good guys. I’m very happy for him. This is great opportunity and I think Mobile Christian is very fortunate to get him.”
In 1989, at age 23, Fuller became the youngest head coach in Class 6A when he got the job at Baldwin County High School. In his only year there, he led the Tigers to their first playoff appearance.
He won 234 games at Faith Academy from 1990-99, including the 1998 AISA championship. He also took the Rams to four other championship series.
In Fairhope, Fuller coached the Pirates to 565 wins in 23 years, including 14 area championships and an appearance in the 2012 Class 6A state finals, where Fairhope lost to Oxford in three games. He resigned in June 2022.
