Phillips Academy Baseball Coach Kevin Graber Leaving For Chicago Cubs

ANDOVER, MA — Longtime Phillips Academy baseball head coach Kevin Graber stepped down Wednesday in order to take a position with the Chicago Cubs organization, Phillips Academy Athletic Director Lisa Joel has confirmed.

Graber, who spent 13 seasons in charge of the Big Blue, will serve as the coordinator of the Cubs' spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona, and will manage the Arizona Cubs, the team's Rookie-level affiliate, according to the New England Baseball Journal.

At Phillips Academy, Graber's teams have won five Central New England Prep Baseball League (CNEPSBL) championships, including four of the last eight titles.

Graber is a two-time American Baseball Coaches Association Northeast Region Coach of the Year and over 40 of his Phillips Academy players have gone on to play collegiately.

As a player, Graber competed collegiately at Winthrop (Rock Hill, South Carolina) and College of St. Rose (Albany, New York), and he played professionally with the Adirondack Lumberjacks, Southern Minnesota Stars and Pine Rivers Rapids, the latter in Australia.

Now, Graber returns to professional baseball, and he does so with one of the game's most storied franchises. However, Graber said it won't be easy leaving Andover.

"It's difficult leaving Phillips Academy," Graber told Patch. "I work with amazing students and families, and my colleagues in athletics and our office of admission are among my best friends. But I've always felt I'd circle back to pro baseball at some point. It feels like the time is right, and this opportunity with the Cubs was just too enticing to turn down."

At Phillips Academy, in addition to coaching baseball, Graber has served as the senior associate director of admission. Joel told Patch that Graber's impact at the school extended well beyond the baseball diamond.

"As KG encourages his student-athletes to be so much more than dedicated baseball players, KG is a role model as to what it means to be fully engaged in a community as dynamic as Phillips Academy," Joel said. "From performing as Mother Ginger in the Nutcracker to serenading the community at an All-School Meeting to sitting front and center for speaker series or theater and music productions, KG's presence and impact is enormous and will be sorely missed. "

Joel said no decisions have been made about Graber's successor as the school's baseball coach.