University of California, Santa Barbara

David Tillotson returned for his second stint with UC Santa Barbara Baseball in the fall of 2024, coming aboard as the Gauchos’ Director of Player Development, Camps and Clinics. He previously served as the Director of Analytics and Player Development for the Gauchos from 2019 to 2021. During his first tour in Santa Barbara, the Gauchos went 99-33, winning the 2019 Big West Championship and appearing in the NCAA Tournament both years it was played during that span: 2019 and 2021.

Applying his experience coaching catchers, Tillotson helped Nate Vargas put together an All-Big West campaign behind the dish in 2025. Vargas' 17 doubles and 50 RBIs both led the Gauchos, and the backstop finished one off the team lead in home runs as well.
 
Since he was last in Santa Barbara, Tillotson has coached at Southern California and Cal State Bakersfield, as well as the Corvallis Knights collegiate summer ball team and an elite club team and Redondo Union High School.
 
In his stops at USC and Cal State Bakersfield, Tillotson worked primarily with the teams’ catchers, while also assisting the offensive coaching staff as the first base coach. In the 2022 season at USC, Tillotson worked with the Trojans’ duo of Tyler Lozano and Garret Guillemette, both of whom had strong offensive seasons. Guillemette finished with the team’s third-highest batting average, while Lozano led the squad in home runs, including hitting three in one game. In 2023 at Cal State Bakersfield, Tillotson helped turn utility player Matthew Kurada into the Roadrunners’ primary catcher midway through the season. Under Tillotson’s coaching, Kurada finished the year with a team-high .369 batting average, the eighth-best single-season mark in program history, and earned Second Team All-Big West honors. Tillotson also directed baserunning for the Roadrunners, who stole 34 bags on 42 attempts under his direction.
 
A native of Oak Harbor, Washington, Tillotson was a catcher himself at Centralia College in Centralia, Washington, where he was named the team’s co-captain in his final season. He went on to the University of Washington, where he was a student manager and video coordinator for the Huskies. After graduating in 2016, he spent three years in Cleveland, Mississippi with Teach for America, working as a science teacher at Cleveland Central High School, where he also helped coach the baseball and soccer teams.