Jim Toman could turn a recruiting pitch into a dugout story, once rolling up his sleeves, flexing and talking about his "pythons," as former South Carolina catcher Landon Powell recalled to ABC News 4. Toman, the college baseball recruiter and head coach whose career stretched from NC State to South Carolina, Liberty and Middle Tennessee, died on August 4, 2026, at 64, ABC News 4 reported.

The path began in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, where Toman played football and baseball at Gateway Senior High School. At NC State, the catcher earned four letters from 1981 through 1984 and captained the Wolfpack as a junior and senior. His 1984 ACC tournament remains a compact measure of his ability: four home runs, four doubles and 25 total bases, all tournament records at the time, plus a place on the all-tournament team. He earned his bachelor's degree from NC State in 1985 and returned for a master's degree in sport management, completed with a 4.0 grade point average in 1995.

After coaching at two high schools, Toman entered the college ranks as a Florida International assistant in 1989. He joined Ray Tanner at NC State the next year, became associate head coach in 1993 and followed Tanner to South Carolina in 1996. There, he directed recruiting and worked with catchers while the Gamecocks reached the College World Series in 2002, 2003 and 2004. He received national assistant coach of the year honors in 2002.

Recruiting became Toman's signature work. By the time he left South Carolina, he had helped assemble 15 top-25 classes, including three that Collegiate Baseball ranked first nationally. Tanner publicly credited Toman's effort when South Carolina announced its top-ranked 2005 group through University of South Carolina Athletics. "He made everything fun," Powell said, adding that Toman made a player feel like the best one around.

Liberty gave Toman his first college head coaching job in 2007. Over nine seasons, his teams went 329-205-1, posted a winning record each year and made him the second-winningest coach in program history. The 2013 Flames won five straight games to take the Big South tournament, then beat Clemson twice in the NCAA Columbia Regional to reach Liberty's first regional final. A year later, Liberty received its first at-large NCAA tournament berth, and Big South head coaches unanimously chose Toman as the conference's Coach of the Year. Liberty University Athletics counted 24 MLB draft selections from his nine seasons.

Toman returned to recruiting as College of Charleston's assistant head coach for one season before Middle Tennessee appointed him its 22nd head baseball coach in June 2018. He led the Blue Raiders from 2019 through 2022, the final head coaching chapter of a college career that had begun more than three decades earlier. Middle Tennessee's announcement described him as a nationally known recruiter and a key contributor to South Carolina's rise.

He was the father of Caroline, Charlie Mac and Tucker. To former players and fellow coaches, family and baseball often overlapped: a recruiting visit became a place on a roster, and a roster became a network that endured after the last inning.

Toman's work remains visible in South Carolina's Omaha teams, Liberty's 2013 Big South trophy and first regional final, the 24 Liberty players selected in the MLB draft, and the players he evaluated and coached behind the plate. His career runs through the record books of four major stops, but its clearest line is the succession of players and coaches who carried his lessons into their own baseball lives.