BILL GRAHAM ANNOUNCED AS PENN ST. ALTOONA HEAD SOFTBALL COACH

Penn State Altoona athletics has announced the hiring of Bill Graham to be the head coach of its NCAA Division III women’s softball program. 

Graham brings 30 years of coaching experience to Penn State Altoona, including stints at Division I and II programs. In nine seasons (2009-18) as the head coach of Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania, he racked up 256 wins, led the Crimson Hawks to Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championships in 2011 and 2012, and coached the team to the program’s first-ever College World Series appearance. Most recently, Graham served as the assistant softball coach for Division I Southeast Missouri State University, University of Akron, and Youngstown State University. 

Graham becomes the seventh head coach in the Division III era of Penn State Altoona’s softball program. He is a 1994 graduate of Penn State Behrend. 

Graham graduated from Penn State Behrend with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, and he served as the assistant coach of Behrend’s softball program from 1992-95 before coaching as the assistant for the school’s baseball program from 1995-98. 

Graham remained in the Erie area for his next several coaching opportunities, working as the assistant baseball coach at Cathedral Prep High School (1998-99), the head baseball coach and Assistant Director of Recreation at Division II Gannon University (1999-2001), and the assistant softball coach at Division II Edinboro University (2001-03). He moved on to become the assistant baseball and softball coach and interim softball head coach at Division II Saginaw Valley State University (2004-07), where he also obtained a Master of Arts degree in Leadership and Public Administration in 2005. Graham went on to become the assistant softball coach at Division II Ashland University (2008-09), where he helped lead the team to a Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular season championship in 2009 and also helped host the Great Lakes NCAA regional that year. 

Graham returned to western Pennsylvania in 2009, becoming the head coach of IUP’s Division II softball program, a position he held through 2018. In 2011, Graham guided the Crimson Hawks to their first-ever PSAC championship, a school-record 38 overall wins, a seventh place final ranking in NCAA Division II, and the program’s first berth to the College World Series. That season, Graham and his staff earned National Fastpitch Coaches Association Atlantic Region and PSAC Central Coaching Staff of the Year honors. In 2012, he helped lead IUP to its second PSAC title during a 31-win campaign for the Crimson Hawks. During his tenure at IUP, Graham compiled a 256-145-1 overall record for a program-best .638 winning percentage. He coached two All-American student-athletes, as well as numerous all-conference and all-region selections, and his team’s grade point average finished at 3.2 or higher in each of his nine seasons. 

Graham advanced to the Division I level for each of his next three coaching jobs, serving as the assistant softball coach at Southeast Missouri State (2018-19), Akron (2019-21), and Youngstown State (2021-22). At Southeast Missouri State, Graham was a member of the staff that received NFCA Mideast Region Coaching Staff of the Year honors in 2019, when the team finished with a school-record 46 wins. 

At Penn State Altoona, Graham succeeds Joe Merilli, who coached the Lions for each of the past six seasons and stepped down from the position last semester. Graham will inherit a Lions softball program that is coming off of an 11-13-1 overall record in 2021, including an 8-8 mark in the AMCC that put the team in fifth place in the conference’s regular season standings. Nine players return from last spring’s roster. 

In addition to his coaching duties at Penn State Altoona, Graham will serve as the Athletics department’s Compliance Coordinator, managing topics such as student-athlete eligibility and NCAA compliance.