Mervyl Melendez

Mervyl Melendez

• School Bethune-Cookman College
• High School Lake Howell High School

• Born February 4, 1974 in Carolina Puerto Rico

Biographical Information

Mervyl Melendez has coached college baseball for over two decades (as of 2022).

Melendez was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Florida at age 13. At Bethune-Cookman College, he hit .342 with a school-record 30 doubles. He also pitched in relief. He was named to the Black College All-America Team in 1996. He was assistant coach at Bethune-Cookman from 1997-1999 then became head coach. In his first 11 years, he won 10 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference titles. He has won the MEAC Coach of the Year (2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010) and Black College Baseball Coach of the Year several times. He helped develop major leaguer Mark Woodyard as well as Team Canada outfielder Sébastien Boucher.

From 2012 to 2016 he was head coach of Alabama State University, taking the school to the NCAA tournament in 2016, the first ever appearance for Alabama State. He then returned to Florida in 2017 as head coach at Florida International University. He stepped down following the 2022 season, when the team went 16-34, its lowest win total ever (not counting the 2020 season which was cut short by the Coronavirus pandemic).

His son MJ Melendez reached the majors in 2022; another son, Jayden Melendez, played for him at Florida International University.

Coaching Record

Year	School	Overall Record	Conference Record	Post Season
2000	Bethune-Cookman College	33-27	10-8	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2001	Bethune-Cookman College	26-34	11-6	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2002	Bethune-Cookman College	39-22	16-2	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2003	Bethune-Cookman College	30-28	11-5	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2004	Bethune-Cookman College	27-28	14-4	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2005	Bethune-Cookman College	22-28	12-6	MEAC
2006	Bethune-Cookman College	30-27	15-0	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2007	Bethune-Cookman College	33-27	16-1	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2008	Bethune-Cookman University	36-22	17-1	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2009	Bethune-Cookman University	32-28	16-2	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2010	Bethune-Cookman University	35-22	18-0	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2011	Bethune-Cookman University	32-24	18-0	MEAC / CWS Regionals
2012	Alabama State University	20-36	14-10	SWAC
2013	Alabama State University	32-25	18-6	SWAC
2014	Alabama State University	37-20	21-3	SWAC
2015	Alabama State University	31-19	18-6	SWAC
2016	Alabama State University	38-17	24-0	SWAC / CWS Regionals
2017	Florida International University	31-27	15-15	C-USA
2018	Florida International University	26-28	15-13	C-USA
2019	Florida International University	23-32	12-18
2020	Florida International University	10-5	0-0
2021	Florida International University	20-31	11-19
2022	Florida International University	16-34	8-22

Further Reading

• Walter Villa (Miami Herald): "FIU baseball coach Melendez steps down after program’s worst season in over a decade", Yahoo! News, May 26, 2022. [1]

Related Sites

• Florida International University bio