Ryan Forrest named 17th head coach of Princeton baseball

Princeton has announced the appointment of Ryan Forrest as the Robert H.B. Baldwin ’42 head coach of Princeton baseball after former head coach Scott Bradley was not reappointed.

Bradley coached the Tigers for 28 years and ended his career with a 504–685–2 record. Under Bradley, Princeton won the Ivy League seven times, made the NCAA Tournament seven times, and recorded 12 20-win seasons. Bradley did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Princetonian.

Princeton baseball has not had a winning season since 2023 and have not recorded two consecutive winning seasons since 2003–2004. With the appointment of Forrest, hopes will be high not only to turn that streak around but to bring some consistency to a depleted program.

“This is something that I have always wanted, and my family has always wanted,” Forrest said to the ‘Prince.’ “I think Princeton is the perfect fit for us in terms of what our family values.”

“Getting a chance to play in the Ivy League, and having a chance to win a championship every year, we are just so thrilled and so excited to be a part of the Princeton community and Princeton family,” Forrest continued.

Princeton will be Forrest’s first head coach role as he joins the Tigers following a three-year assistant coach/pitching coach stint with Boston College in the Atlantic Coastal Conference. At Boston College, Forrest was key in the development of their pitching prowess as they ranked seventh out of 16 in the ACC in 2026 with an earned run average of 4.94, improving from 5.96 in 2025 and 6.63 in 2024.

At Princeton, the biggest step up will be learning how to transition those coaching skills into a team-wide push. The Tigers ranked seventh out of eight in pitching in the Ivy League in 2026, but they struggled with batting and fielding too — coming sixth and fifth respectively. 

For Forrest, however, the path to change starts off the field.

“I think the biggest thing for us, which is gonna lead to our success this year, is creating that buy-in, creating a culture of doing things the right way, playing our style of baseball, and again, the biggest thing for me is gaining their trust,” Forrest told the ‘Prince.’ “Once those guys know that I will do anything for them, and our staff will do anything for them, they will run through a wall for us.”

Trust — in the program and in the team — might be the biggest point of emphasis for Forrest. Starting his coaching career as a volunteer assistant coach at his alma mater, the University of Maine, he transitioned to a full time assistant coach position at Millersville University in Millersville, Pa.

Forrest then continued his coaching career at Mississippi College — now Mississippi Christian University — in 2016 in Division II baseball and has seen success follow him as he continued his career at Air Force Academy from 2018–2023 and Boston College after that.

His brief stint with Mississippi College saw them qualify for the Gulf Southern Conference tournament for the first time since 1996. Air Force brought even more success for the new Tigers head coach, where he helped set the single-season record for the most strikeouts with 455 and set a program record 4.83 ERA in Mountain West play.

“It takes a village and I firmly believe that the success we’ve had in the different institutions that I’ve been at has been strictly from being around just good people,” Forrest responded to the ‘Prince’ as he explained such success. “Having people that have the same values and the same goals of first and foremost caring about the kids, caring about their student athlete experience, and then caring about their overall development.” 

“That is the expectation of when we get our staff together is that those are gonna be our coaching priorities,” Forrest continued.

The lessons learned at Air Force, in particular, will prove critical in Forrest’s approach to the Princeton job. There, he coached future MLB No.1 draft pick Paul Skenes, who spent two years at the academy before transferring to LSU, where he won a national championship.

“It was an unbelievable experience for me being around high academic cadet athletes there that just want more,” Forrest told the ‘Prince.’ “The one thing that we’re gonna talk about a lot is we just don’t want to be average, right? If you want to be average, go somewhere else because it’s not gonna work out here for you.”

But as recruitment and team meetings get underway, that culture of working hard to be above average will kickstart. Princeton baseball’s first games won’t start until February 2027, giving Forrest plenty of time to begin his work and meet with the team.

For the Orange and Black, the success that Forrest has brought to all of his other institutions will be much sought as a brand-new era — the Ryan Forrest era — of Princeton baseball gets underway.

Alex Beverton-Smith is a senior Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’

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