Bowie's Palumbo Finds Baseball Home in Florida

Jeff Palumbo and his three brothers grew up playing baseball in Bowie at , near Benjamin Tasker Middle School.  "I was there about every night, either for my games or my brothers. All of our Little League games were there," said Palumbo, who also played at when he was younger.

All four of the Palumbo brothers played in high school and college. One of the players that their father, also named Jeff, coached at the youth level is Brett Cecil, who made the drive from Dunkirk to Bowie to play and is now a top starting pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays after starring for the Terps of Maryland.

While the family has long-term ties to Bowie, Palumbo has had the chance to expand his baseball resume beyond the mid-Atlantic region to one of the top locations in the country for amatuer baseball. A former assistant coach at George Mason, he is now on the coaching staff, in his third season, as an assistant at Division I University of Central Florida near downtown Orlando. "Like anything else it is all about connections," said Palumbo, standing on the field at UCF after a win March 2 against the University of Maine.

He was coaching at Mason, where one of his colleagues knew Terry Rooney, a native of Northern Virginia who played at Radford and is a former assistant at George Washington, James Madison, Old Dominion, Notre Dame, Stetson and LSU.

"Coach Rooney called and asked if I would be interested, so I made my way down," Palumbo said of Rooney, who took the UCF job after the 2008 season.

"It is one of those things. You always hear about how good baseball is down in Florida. When the opportunity arose it was something I wanted to look into. I knew about the history and tradition of baseball down at Central Florida. It was exciting to come to warm weather and see how talented high school baseball is in Florida. It was eye-opening. It is exciting to be here."

The Bowie product, who played at St. John's Catholic Prep in Washington, aids the UCF defense and also helps with hitting and recruiting. The 2010 recruiting class at the school was ranked No. 10 in the country by Baseball America. Palumbo is considered one of the rising assistant coaches on the East Coast, according to the school website.

Palumbo, as a senior at George Mason, was the school's male student-athlete of the year and led the country with 1.4 runs per game and hit .402. He was drafted in the 15th round by the San Francisco Giants as a senior. He and his wife, Sarah, were married in 2009.

Last year he was named to the all-CAA Silver Anniversary team, a squad that included 17 All-Americans and 11 players who have Major League experience. The CAA has several former players who played in The Show last year, including former Mason pitcher Shawn Camp (Toronto), infielder Brandon Inge (VCU, Detroit), pitcher Justin Verlander (ODU, Detroit) and outfielder Casper Wells (Towson, Detroit).

UCF is in Conference USA and competes for players against the likes of Florida, State, Florida and Miami, annually some of the top programs in the country. The Knights of UCF play April 5 at Florida and then host the Gators on April 20. UCF plays a series at Florida State in early May.

"UCF as a whole has made a huge push with its athletic program. We are starting to see some of the rewards," he said. The men's basketball team won its first 14 games this season and was nationally ranked before a losing streak in January. One of their top players is Marcus Jordan, the son of former NBA great Michael Jordan. The school's football team won a Bowl game last season.

"Baseball has one of the best traditions here," Palumbo said. "We go up against those guys (such as Florida and FSU). They are some of the best programs in the country."

Last June the Knights had three players taken in the annual amateur free agent draft. Most of the players on the roster are from Florida, but the Knights do have a senior pitcher, Nick Cicio, who went to high school in Perry Hall (near Baltimore) and was recruited by the University of Maryland.

Palumbo said his team does not back down from the challenge of competing on the field and in the recruiting war against those top programs. "We play in Conference USA," he said. "It is one of the four or five best conferences in the country every single year. We want to be the best and go to Omaha," the site of the College World Series.