Joel Chimelis Position: Volunteer Assistant Coach Experience: Second season at UCF

Joel Chimelis enters his second season as a volunteer assistant coach for the UCF softball program. He will be working with the Knights' infielders and helping with the team's offense through the month of March, before leaving to coach with the Houston Astros at the single-A level from April to September. He is currently is in his sixth year as an assistant coach for the Houston Astros organization.

The Knights improved offensively in every major statistical category from 2011 to 2012 under Chimelis's guidance. UCF's team batting average jumped 14 points from .244 to .258 and the Black and Gold also scored 65 more runs on the season while slugging more doubles and more home runs.

Chimelis started his professional baseball coaching career in 2004 with the Washington Nationals, where he coached in the Single-A South Atlantic League for two seasons.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Chimelis began his playing career at Eastern District High School in New York, before signing with Howard Junior College in 1985. While at Howard, he was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 18th round, but chose to sign a National Letter of Intent to play at Texas.

While with the Longhorns, he posted a .343 batting average and was an All-Southwest Conference shortstop. For his play that season, the Oakland A's drafted Chimelis in the 11th round and he went on to play in their minor league system for four seasons through Double-AA for the Huntsville Stars.

After four years with the Stars, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants where he played at AA, AAA and reached the Major League level, briefly. In 1994, while playing shortstop for the Shreveport Captains in the AA-Texas League, he was selected to the All-Star Team where he led the league in doubles (43) and hit .295 for the season.

In 1996 he played in the AAA Mexican League with the Oaxaca Warriors and also played briefly for the New York Mets AAA team, the Norfolk Tides, where he hit .382 in 25 games.

In 1997 Chimelis played professionally in Taiwan and in 1998 played in the Korean Professional Baseball League. From 1999-2002 he once again played in the AAA Mexican League for the Laredo Owls where he hit over .300 in each of his three seasons and posted years with 30, 19 and 15 homeruns.

In total, Chimelis played 14 seasons of professional baseball in the US, Puerto Rico Winter League, Taiwan, Korea and Mexico.

Chimelis has been married for 17 years to his wife Carmen, whom he met while playing winter ball in Puerto Rico. They are proud parents of three daughters, Adriana (16), Nichole (14) and Gabriela (11) and they reside in Orlando.