Joe McDonald

Joe McDonald is the head baseball coach at Arizona Christian University and serves as baseball director for Next Athletes.

Joe McDonald enters his seventh season as the head coach of Arizona Christian baseball with a record of 190-121 in his first six seasons. This will be his 30th season of coaching overall.

The Firestorm baseball program is fresh off of their first ever appearance in the 2024 NAIA World Series with a top 5 finish in the country. Coach McDonald was named an ABCA Regional Coach of the Year! This was the 2nd time under Coach McDonald ACU reached the NAIA National Tournament, 2019 & 2024.

Records for ACU Baseball were changed- in some cases shattered- during the 2024 season. The most impressive records changed were home runs now at 99 (up 41 from the previous mark) and strikeouts at 623 (139 more than the old top mark). Other records broken include slugging and on base percentage, runs scored, RBI, hits, doubles, total bases, walks, hit by pitch, innings pitched, wins, shutouts, and strikeouts looking.

Prior to ACU, McDonald was the only head coach at Boulder Creek HS in Anthem after he started the team in 2005 (began playing varsity in 2006). Under his guidance, the Jaguars reached the Arizona state playoffs eight times which includes finishing in the top five three times.

In 2010, Boulder Creek set the state of Arizona record with 485 team hits in a season. After BCHS won the regional championship and ended with a 33-6 record in 2011, Coach McDonald was awarded the AIA State, City of Phoenix, and Northwest Regional Coach of the Year honors. One year later, the BCHS diamond was named the ABCA National Field of the Year.

On the strength of his 249 wins at BCHS, Coach McDonald saw 45 players sign to play college baseball including Coby Boulware- a 2018 Freshman All-American at TCU. Two of McDonald’s players have signed professional contracts- Alex Real with the Minnesota Twins and West Tunnell with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Success on the field was started by success in the classroom as the Jaguars posted a cumulative GPA of 3.3 in the 12 years under McDonald.

Along with coaching, Coach McDonald was the Physical Education Department Chair at Boulder Creek High School. In addition, he was named the Assistant Athletic Director of the Deer Valley Unified School District where one of his many accomplishments was starting the Victory with Honor program. Prior to moving to Arizona, Coach McDonald served as the Head Assistant Baseball Coach at Western Oregon University from 1998-2000. He also coached a summer each in the Arizona Junior College Summer League and Northwest Collegiate Baseball League. As a player, McDonald played two seasons at Western Oregon University and one season at Linfield College. The outfielder was an All-State selection and two time All-Intermountain Conference selection at Bend High School. Academically, McDonald earned a physical education degree with a minor in health from Western Oregon University in 1998. Four years later, he added a master’s degree in education from Western Oregon University. Coach McDonald and his wife, Pam, have three daughters- Jaysa, Paislee, and Liliana- and two sons- Montgomery and Kayden. The McDonalds are volunteers with the Christian Family Care Adoption Agency.