Troy Marrow has moved from the sidelines as a volunteer assistant coach for the baseball program at GW to a front office job with the San Francisco Giants.

Marrow was hired in May as a baseball operations fellow with the Giants as a member of the inaugural class of the MLB’s diversity fellowship program, an initiative from the league to provide candidates with diverse backgrounds front office positions and jobs in the commissioner’s office.

In his new position, Marrow will assist with amateur scouting reports and support other research within the office for more than a year.

[gwh_image id=”1063661″ credit=”Courtesy of Troy Marrow” align=”right” size=”embedded-img”]Troy Marrow, a former volunteer assistant coach for GW’s baseball team, was hired by the San Francisco Giants’ front office.[/gwh_image]

“I get to work in baseball, something that I’ve known my whole life,” he said. “If you had told me this three, four years ago, I would’ve told you you’re crazy.”

The job gets Marrow closer to his dream of calling the shots for a Major League Baseball team as a general manager, but when the opportunity first presented itself, Marrow said he did not immediately take it.

When he first heard about the opportunity nearly a year ago, Marrow had just moved from North Carolina to Maryland to help coach GW’s baseball team. He did not want to relocate again, he said, but about a week before the application was due, he applied on a whim.

Marrow said he first interviewed with the Tampa Bay Rays and the San Diego Padres. Three days after finding out the Padres decided to hire someone else, the Giants called.

After coaching baseball in a game against North Carolina Central – the same college Marrow graduated from in 2015 and was pursuing a master’s degree from at the time – General Manager Bobby Evans interviewed Marrow over the phone.

“It all felt like a dream. You always say what your dream is – to be a general manager of a baseball team – and to actually take a step forward to that dream is something that I was probably looking forward to most,” Marrow said.

Marrow began coaching at GW when he was interning with the Under-18 National Team at USA Baseball in 2017.

By mid-September, Marrow was working as a volunteer coach for baseball, where the former third baseman did everything from coordinating camp schedules to spending time as the team’s first base coach and trying his hand as a catching coach.

Head coach Gregg Ritchie, who was an assistant coach for the team at the time Marrow was with the program, was drafted by the San Francisco Giants, the team Marrow now works with, and played his entire professional career with the organization.

“I pay particular attention to hiring people that are really good at what they do, but more importantly, that are tremendous people that are going to have an impact regardless of the level of their experience at the moment,” Ritchie said.

Playing his collegiate years at North Carolina Central, Marrow’s time on the diamond was cut short when he tore his ACL in his final season. But despite the injury, he said he would stick with the sport even if that meant not playing on the field.

“My ultimate goal is to just to keep learning as much as I can because this is like my first office job,” Marrow said. “I’ve always been on the baseball field but it’s all about the learning experience.”

Most general managers have at least two decades of experience before being hired, but the 25-year-old already has a few teams in mind he would like to lead. The Lutherville, Md. native said he would return to Baltimore, but hopes the MLB offers a team out of North Carolina by the time he gets his shot.

Although he was only with the Colonials for one season, his absence is still felt on the team.

“The thing he brought to the table was consistency in what he did and how he acted,” Ritchie said. “He showed guys a very solid slow heartbeat with a very burning desire to go out and win baseball games.”