Yohman to focus on family after giving up Legion, LH positions
Jonathan Guth
Brad Yohman has been part of baseball in Fayette County as a coach since 2005, whether it was with Uniontown’s American Legion baseball team or the Laurel Highlands high school team.
That will change next season.
Yohman opted not to pursue continuing on as head coach of the Mustangs following this past season after giving up the reins to the Uniontown Legion team before that.
“The biggest thing right now for me was family,” said Yohman, who has four children, son Connor, 11, and daughters Charley 9, Libby 4, and Elin 3.
“My son is in that Little League phase right now and the more time I’m with the high school team or investing in the Legion team the less time I’m spending with him or my girls.”
Yohman spent three seasons as head coach at Laurel Highlands and guided the Mustangs to their first PIAA playoff win in his first year in 2022.
Laurel Highlands went 16-8 that season and finished second in Section 3-AAAA with a 9-3 record. The Mustangs were given the No. 4 seed in the WPIAL playoffs and defeated Beaver, 3-1, before losing to top-seeded Montour in the semifinals, 4-1. LH came back with a consolation win over Knoch to reach the PIAA tournament where it upended one of the top teams in the state, Erie Cathedral Prep, 4-3, for the program’s first state victory. LH fell to West Mifflin in the PIAA quarterfinals, 4-3.
“The first year as head coach at Laurel Highlands is a season I’ll never forget,” Yohman said. “We made some history for the school district and were very proud of that first PIAA win.
“Erie was very good. We knew they had a deep lineup and were very talented. But (winning pitcher) Joe Chambers was the best player on the field that day. He was the kind of guy, with his competitive nature, that you just loved to coach.”
The Mustangs went 9-10 overall and again finished second in the section with a 6-4 mark in 2023 to qualify for the playoffs where they lost to Indiana in the first round.
After a 25-18 record over his first two years at LH, Yohman’s squad went just 1-14 the past season with a younger less-experienced roster.
Yohman was happy with the opportunity to coach Laurel Highlands.
“It was certainly an absolute honor and privilege to coach my alma mater,” Yohman said. “That was just a dream fulfilled for me.
“I started helping Coach (Tom) Landman, who I played for, as a volunteer assistant for a couple of seasons when he was still coach of the Laurel Highlands program. I can’t say enough about how much Coach Landman meant to me as far as being a mentor. Without his support I probably would’ve never gotten the opportunity to coach the high school team.”
Yohman has been part of the Uniontown American Legion baseball team since 2005 and has been the manager since 2015, an eight-year reign with the 2020 season canceled due to covid.
“I’d been around the Legion program since I was a kid,” Yohman said. “I played for five seasons and started helping coach Pop (Ron Popovich) when I was 21-22 years old. I developed a major passion for coaching through that. I love teaching the game.”
Yohman compiled an impressive 178-59-1 record with Uniontown for a .750 winning percentage and guided the team to seven straight Fayette County American Legion Baseball League championships and three regional championships which led to appearances in the state tournament.
“We had a really good run with the Legion program,” Yohman said. “We were incredibly successful.”
Yohman cited his first season as his most memorable with Uniontown when the team made one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the history of the regional tournament to reach the states.
“We had a really good group of guys who I felt could maybe do something pretty special,” Yohman said. “We got to the regionals in Shaler and we blow the first game against the host team in epic fashion. We were up five and we give up six in the bottom of the ninth to lose. You’re just kind of shell shocked.
“But the next morning before playing a real good Elizabeth Forward team, I told the guys we can dwell on yesterday and be down on ourselves or we can put it past us and go make a run, and we did. We rattled off five wins in a row and won the regional and got to states. On the final day we had to beat Blackhawk and then beat Hopewell in back-to-back games and we did. Those kids just played incredible.”
Yohman commended his other two teams that won regional titles.
“The 2021 team was a pretty special team, too, because, to my knowledge, that’s the furthest Uniontown has ever made it in the state tournament,” Yohman said. “We got to day four before we got knocked out. That was a really solid team and a good group of guys.
“In 2018 we hosted and went 5-0 which was pretty impressive.”
Yohman struggled with the decision to give up both the LH and Uniontown positions.
“It was hard to make the decision to give up the Legion program and to not return to the high school program because I do have such a passion for coaching baseball,” Yohman said. “In the end, family was just more important. My wife Lauren has been incredible throughout all these years. I couldn’t have done it without her support.”
Yohman, who is a licensed PIAA basketball official and has worked numerous playoff games, including two WPIAL boys finals, will continue on in that role.
When asked about the possibility of returning to coaching baseball someday, Yohmand said, “You never know what the future holds. I might be inclined at some point to get back into it as long as it doesn’t take me away from missing anything my son or my girls might be doing.”