Hinds Baseball Welcomes Caleb Upton to Coaching Staff

Story from Hinds CC Athletics:
Caleb Upton has been hired as an assistant coach for the Hinds Community College baseball program and will serve as the hitting coach and will be responsible for the program’s outfielders. 

“We are thrilled to add Caleb to our staff, as his familiarity and experience in this program will be a huge asset to our players,” head coach Dan Rives said. “Caleb had an outstanding career here, both on and off the field, as he was a leader behind the plate for us on our 2014 World Series, as well as winning the Eagle Award for his accomplishments on campus and in the classroom. He is very intelligent and will have a good rapport with the players, so we can’t wait for him to get going.”

Upton spent the 2024 season at nearby Germantown High School, where he was an assistant coach under Chris Peden, as well as serving as the program’s head eighth and ninth grade coach.

Before Germantown, Upton spent four years as the head coach of the Brookhaven Academy baseball program, where he helped lead the Cougars to the 2022 MAIS 5A semifinals, as well as claiming the district championship all four seasons as the head man.

Before he accepted the head coaching position at BA, Upton served as a graduate assistant coach at Hinds during the 2018 and 2019 seasons, where he coached the catchers and assisted with the hitters. He also worked as an assistant in the Sports Information department at Hinds. 

After his playing days concluded, Upton served one year (2017) as the volunteer assistant coach at Mississippi College under head coach Jeremy Haworth, where he also coached the catchers and assisted in coaching hitters. In 2017, the Choctaws made their first Gulf South Conference (GSC) playoff appearance since their switch to NCAA Division II athletics.

Upton is very familiar with the Hinds campus, as the former backstop and team captain led the Eagles to a Region 23 Championship and runner-up finish in the 2014 NJCAA World Series, which was his second season in Raymond. 

During his time at Hinds, Upton finished with a career .315 batting average over two seasons, collecting honors as team MVP and MACJC All-State Second Team honors as a freshman (2013). 

As a sophomore in 2014, Upton received several awards, including being named a Capital One Academic All-American, NJCAA All-Academic Second Team Award Member and NJCAA Superior Student-Athlete Award for academic achievement. He was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and was named to Who’s Who Among Students in American Community and Junior Colleges. 

Upton was also the 2014 Eagle Award recipient for top male student-athlete, as well as the Hinds honoree for the Higher Education Appreciation Day-Working for Academic Excellence (HEADWAE) program, where he was honored by the Mississippi State Legislature. He graduated from Hinds in 2014 with an associate’s degree in education.

After the 2014 season, Upton head to nearby Mississippi College, where he was a team captain in 2015 and 2016 for the Choctaws. Upton finished his career hitting .310 with 15 homeruns while catching in nearly every game. He also was named a member of the GSC Academic Honor Roll in both his junior and senior seasons. He graduated from Mississippi College in 2017 with a degree in mathematics and a minor in education. 

Upton attended high school at Cathedral High School in Natchez, where he was a three-year starter who collected All-State and All-District honors for his play. The Green Wave finished as south state runners-up in two of his final three seasons in the program.

He is married to Ellen Upton and the couples resides in Brandon.