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Ryan Knox, Assistant Baseball Coach

Ryan Knox, a former professional baseball player, is embarking on his first coaching experience here at Heartland. Knox attended Peoria Manual High School which led to a successful collegiate career at Illinois State University. There he earned Baseball America's Freshman All-American honors, Missouri Valley Conference AII-Conference honors, and Missouri Valley Academic All-Conference honors.

Being Drafted twice, ('98 by Texas Rangers 18th round: '99 by Milwaukee Brewers 24th round) Knox spent over seven years playing professionally. In 1999 he led the Pioneer League in both hitting (.349) and stolen bases (44) which granted him All-Star Honors and Milwaukee Brewers Player of the Month award for August 1999. Escalating through the Brewers organization, he reached class AAA (Indianapolis) in 2003, in which he led his team in stolen bases (17) while appearing in only 36 games. Spending most of four years in AAA, Knox was a Pacific Coast League Champion in 2005 while a member of the Nashville Sounds (AAA Milwaukee).

Knox has compiled a career average of .265 in 789 games played. Also, he boasts of 139 career doubles, 28 home runs and 254 stolen bases in 2,759 official at-bats. He finished his career in 2006 with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays organization where he split time between Montgomery (AA) and the Durham Bulls (AAA). His career highlight came in a Major League Spring Training game when he homered off of Ricardo Rincon of the Oakland Athletics in March 2004. Knox also compiled an average of .300 over three major league spring trainings.

In the off-season, Knox has honed his ability to teach the ins and outs of the game through providing private instruction to over 75 clients with over 700 hours committed. He resides with his wife Stacey, in Bloomington.

Contact Information

Phone: (309) 268-8418