UT Permian Basin Athletics announced the hiring of Ryan Van Amburg as the Falcons’ new Head Baseball Coach in June 2026.
A former Division I baseball player and long-tenured assistant coach at the Division II level, Van Amburg brings a wealth of experience to his first head coaching position.
Van Amburg comes to UTPB with over 10 years of experience in offensive development, defensive systems, recruiting, and program leadership at the NCAA level. He has a proven track record of building high-performing offensive units, developing fundamentally sound defenses, and mentoring student-athletes into all-conference and all-region performers. He is known for driving measurable improvements in team production, implementing efficient systems, and contributing to programs that outperform underlying performance metrics. He believes he is prepared to lead a program as a head coach through strong leadership, culture-building, and a results-driven approach.
So far during his coaching career, Van Ambrug has developed multiple .300-plus hitters and elite offensive performers, has built defensive units achieving .970-plus fielding percentages, had consistently improved team offensive production and efficiency, and has a proven ability to develop players into all-conference and all-region athletes.
Van Amburg was hired as an assistant coach at Hillsdale College in the Fall of 2021. He spent five seasons with the Chargers, including the last three as the Associate Head Coach/Recruiting Coordinator. He was noted for a long streak of developing successful power hitters at Hillsdale, as well as shoring up the team's infield defense.
Van Amburg contributed to four consecutive highly productive offensive seasons at Hillsdale, including multiple top-ten marks in school history for runs scored and hits. He developed balanced lineups featuring multiple .300 hitters and high OPS performers, elevated the team defense from .955 to a school record .970 fielding percentage, and implemented defensive systems resulting in one of the top fielding percentages in the conference.
In four seasons at Hillsdale under Van Amburg, Hillsdale remained one of the top power hitting teams in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC), leading the conference with 77 home runs in 2023, and continued to put up numbers that rank among the top 10 all-time offensively in the history of the program. While maintaining Hillsdale's offensive production, Van Amburg also has helped the Chargers make dramatic strides defensively, posting a fielding percentage of .966 in 2023 that broke the school record for single season fielding percentage by nearly a full tenth of a point. Hillsdale broke that fielding percentage record in 2025 with a .968 and again in 2026 with a .970, and the past four seasons represent the top-four marks in terms of fielding percentage in program history.
Van Amburg arrived at Hillsdale after six successful seasons as the infield and hitting coach and recruiting coordinator at Limestone University. During his tenure with the Saints, Van Amburg helped build up Limestone into one of the most feared hitting teams in the South Atlantic Conference in 2021, ranking second in the league with a .311 batting average and finishing with a top five mark in home runs with 43. The Saints also boasted the South Atlantic Conference batting champion, Benjamin Huber, in 2021, and the conference leader in triples, Alex Cornell.
Throughout Van Amburg's tenure at Limestone, the Saints were one of the best power-hitting teams in Division II, finishing with 50 or more home runs in 2017, 2018 and 2019 while falling just short of that mark in fewer games in 2021. All told, Van Amburg coached 11 athletes who combined for 16 All-Conference selections at Limestone, as well five All-Region players and one Division II All-American, Chase Allen.
Prior to joining the Limestone staff, Van Amburg was the hitting coach at DeAnza Junior College (CA), and has also spent time as the hitting coach for multiple collegiate prospects leagues, most recently with the Green Bay Bullfrogs of the Northwoods League.
Van Amburg was a key player for Division I Pepperdine University throughout his four years, starting 71 games with a career .242 batting average, four home runs, 16 doubles and 54 RBIs. During his senior season in 2012, Van Amburg helped guide the Waves to a 36-23 record, a West Coast Conference title and a NCAA Division I Regional appearance. While playing for Pepperdine, Van Amburg graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics in 2012 as well.
Ryan and his wife Heather have two daughters: Emerson and Huntely.
