Tustin High assistant baseball coach Ben Owens named to replace Charles Chatman

Ben Owens was named this week as Tustin High’s new baseball coach. (Photo courtesy Tustin athletics)

Tustin High athletic officials didn’t have to go far to find a new head baseball coach.

On Saturday, Athletic Director Ringo Bossenmeyer said that school officials were “proud to announce” that Ben Owens, an assistant coach for seven years, will replace Charles Chatman.

Chatman was a popular and successful coach who was at Tustin for seven years. Chatman accepted a head coaching and counseling job in Iowa.

“I’m very happy and excited to take over for such a great man and making sure I can continue on these traditions that some of these kids have known since they were 12 years old,” Owens said Saturday.

Owens said he wants to continue to help players move on to college after Tustin.

“I think that’s the biggest thing, being a high school coach is finding a way to get them to where they want to be (after high school). Here I am 10 years removed from playing and enjoy every second of this coaching gig,” he said. “The more I can try and influence these young men, the better off I think I will be as a person and they will be as well.”

Owens, 31, was an assistant coach at Northwood High School under Rob Stuart before joining Chatman’s staff at Tustin. He hopes to continue what Chatman brought to Tustin and bring some new facets as well.

“Right now, I want to continue what we’ve been doing in the classroom,” Owens said. “Our team GPA has been one of the higher ones on campus, and continuing that tradition is step number one and hopefully winning some ball games is step number two once we implement some new systems and a couple things that will be different from years past. But my main focus is making sure our students are students first and athletes second.”

Owens said Chatman has been supportive and was excited about him taking over the program. Chatman had backed Owens for the job.

“He’s very ecstatic even though he’s 2,000 plus miles away, we talked three times last week and he kept telling me, ‘stay patient, don’t panic and things will work out,’ and knowing him, he’s pretty much always right,” Owens said. He’s been a really good mentor and a really good friend for me. He will be missed but I will do everything in my power to continue his traditions and build some of my own.”

Owens earned his degree at Concordia University after attending Chapman University and Fullerton College. He played baseball one year at each school and first met Chatman, who was an assistant coach on the Fullerton baseball team, when he played baseball there.

“I loved every bit of Chapman, I played a little bit and got to play in the D3 World Series which was really cool, just academically it didn’t fit so I needed a place to go and Charles was at Fullerton and they got me hooked up to play at Concordia,” Owens said. “I went through about a week in the fall and realized my passion for playing just wasn’t there any more, so I became a regular student at that point my last two years and somehow graduated in four years and got my degree after doing all the transferring.”

Owens was a four-year letterman at Northwood, started for three years for the Timberwolves. He graduated from Northwood in 2008.

“Playing for Rob (Stuart) was great, I loved every second of it,” Owens said..

Owens and his wife Christine have a daughter Autumn who will be celebrating her first birthday this week.

“Time has flown with that,” Owens said. “We found out Oct. 19 she (his wife) was due, then the pandemic and everything else kind of made that an interesting transition coming back to baseball in the fall.”

In addition to his wife and daughter, his parents Dick Owens and Rachel Owens have also been instrumental in his career, Ben Owens said.

“They are respectful people in the community, which is awesome. I was raised by two people who were fantastic and they have been supportive from day number one of my coaching career,” he said. “When I found out on Thursday and talking with Ringo about it, I called my dad immediately and told him about it and he was super ecstatic, he’s hoping I can kind of make this my own. My mom is very, very happy, not as ecstatic as dad because she’s not in the baseball community like my dad is. But I have to give them a lot of credit for who I am and how they’ve raised me and making sure I treat these young men just like my parents treated me. Stern but fair I guess is the best way to put it.

“My parents always told me you’re going to live by the motto of doing the right thing.”

Owens said he plans to instill that in his coaching philosophy as well.

Bossenmeyer, the new AD at Tustin, expressed confidence in the school’s new baseball coach.

“Ben has been an instrumental part of Coach Chatman’s staff for the last seven years and we are excited to watch as Coach Owens continues the culture of success and accountability on and off the field established by Coach Chatman, while at the same time instituting his own traditions for the Tustin High baseball program,” said Bossenmeyer, the boys basketball coach.

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com