Northern Illinois University Athletics

Calvin Peacock is in his fourth season as the NIU baseball program's pitching coach.

The NIU pitching staff has set single-season records for strikeouts in each of the last two seasons. Huskie pitchers recorded 458 strikeouts in their 2026 MAC championship season after having 450 in 2025. Senior pitcher Max Vaisvila was NIU's first All-MAC First Team selection since 2013, leading the Huskies with an 8-0 record. Vaisvila was named an ABCA/Rawling All-Midwest Region pitcher on June 9. He was the National Pitcher of the Week on March 31 after throwing a complete-game, one-hit shutout of Bowling Green on March 28 with 14 strikeouts. He was also a First Team All-Region pick and signed a free agent contract with the New York Yankees. NIU's starting rotation of Vaisvila, Carter Cox and Danny Cihocki each put themselves in the Huskies' record book for single season strikeouts. Cox had 89, tied for the third-most in program history, with Vaisvila's 87 putting him sixth and Cihocki's 80 putting him 10th. On May 21st NIU struck out a single-game record 18 batters in its 6-5 15-inning win over top-seed Miami at the MAC Tournament.

Under his direction in 2024, redshirt-sophomore Adam Brouwer earned All-MAC Second Team honors. Brouwer led the NIU pitching staff with seven wins and was second on the team in strikeouts with 55 and innings pitched at 73.1. In MAC play Brouwer was 7-1 with a 3.62 earned run average. Freshman Ty Brachbill won five games and led NIU with 59 strikeouts in 74.1 innings.

Peacock joined the NIU coaching staff after two seasons with the Bradley baseball program as the team’s volunteer assistant coach, coaching first base and working with the outfielders.
 
Prior to Bradley, Peacock was head coach of the Normal CornBelters of the Prospect League in the summer of 2021 – a collegiate summer league throughout the Midwest. The youngest manager in Prospect League history, Peacock led the CornBelters to the playoffs after clinching the Great River Division title during the first-half of the season.
 
A native of Bartonville, Illinois, Peacock also served as pitching coach at Carl Sandburg College during the 2020 season, while leading the Hoots of the Kernels Collegiate League in the summer of 2020.
 
Peacock earned his bachelor’s degree in business marketing from Chicago State University, where he was a member of the baseball team and earned WAC All-Academic accolades. He was also a NJCAA Academic All-American during his time at Southeastern Illinois College.