Shiloh Christian announced this week that Allen Gum, a former head baseball coach at Southern Arkansas University and the University of Central Arkansas, will become the Springdale private school's new coach effective June 1.
Gum has 16 years of collegiate coaching experience and two years of high school experience, where he led Batesville to the state championship game two straight seasons.
During Gum's five-year tenure at SAU, the Muleriders compiled 226 victories. SAU won two Gulf South Conference West Division titles and a pair of GSC tournament championships, and made four NCAA Division II Regional appearances. Gum was named to the university's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2023.
He then went to UCA, where he remains the Bears' winningest coach with 310 victories. UCA made eight straight Southland Conference tournament appearances under Gum and won an SLC championship in 2013. He's had 24 players selected in the Major League Baseball draft.
Gum was a 2023 inductee into the SAU Sports Hall of Fame.
Preceding his coaching career was a very successful career as a player. Gum arrived in Magnolia following two seasons at Crowder College. In 1990, Gum led SAU in hitting as a junior outfielder with a .338 average and fielded .975 as Southern Arkansas won the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) championship with a 20-4 record and finished the season 27-23 overall.
As a senior, Gum hit .328 and fielded .961 while helping the Muleriders win their sixth consecutive AIC championship with a 20-4 record and an overall record of 44-15-1. SAU won the NAIA District 17 title to earn a trip to the 1991 NAIA World Series where Gum was honored as the Charles Berry Hustle Award winner.
Following his playing career, Gum assisted the Sheridan High School baseball program for six seasons and served as head baseball coach at Batesville where in three years he led the Pioneers to a 75-25 record with Class AAAA state runner-up finishes in both 2002 and 2003.
After serving two seasons (2004-05) as an assistant coach at Southern Arkansas, Gum grabbed the reigns of one of the state's most successful programs and led the Muleriders on a dominant five-season run. Under Gum's leadership, Southern Arkansas won 226 games (.769 – program-best career winning percentage), the third-most by any head coach in program history, and enjoyed 40 or more wins in all five seasons with a program-record 52 victories coming in 2009.
The Muleriders earned four NCAA regional berths and served as South Regional host for the first time in 2009. In his first season of 2006, Southern Arkansas claimed the Gulf South Conference Tournament Championship and three seasons later, the Muleriders won both the GSC West Division Regular Season title and tournament title with Gum honored as the GSC Coach of the Year both seasons in addition to being named the NCBWA South Region Coach of the Year in 2009.
His final season in Magnolia saw the Muleriders win 40+ games for a program-record fourth-consecutive season, while laying claim to a second-straight GSC West Division regular season championship. Under his tutelage, twenty-seven different players earned All-GSC honors, 13 received all-region recognition and eight were named all-American with four others earning academic all-America plaudits. Eight Muleriders were drafted, including a program-record four following the 2010 season with several more going on to sign independent league contracts.
