Lee Yeager to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

CORPUS CHRISTI – Lee Yeager, who has coached high school baseball for more than three decades, including 25 campaigns within the Corpus Christi Independent School District, is the recipient of the 2026 South Texas Softball & Baseball Winter Banquet Lifetime Achievement Award.

Presented by Whataburger, the 20th edition of the banquet takes place Thursday, January 15 inside the Henry Garrett Ballroom of the Hilliard Center. Doors open at 6 PM. Tickets go on sale January 5.

Yeager, serving as Veterans Memorial’s head baseball coach since the school opened in 2015, has led the Eagles through multiple rounds of the playoffs in each of the past seven seasons. The run began in 2018, the program’s third year of play, when Vets marched to the 5A state semifinal.

Yeager, 58, coached the Carroll Tigers from 2000 to 2014. In 2010, the Tigers became the second 5A school from the Coastal Bend to win a state championship. Yeager's squad featured six sophomore starters that year, including tournament MVP and future MLB first-round draft pick Courtney Hawkins.

Mark Blackmar, Matthew Rainey, and Cliff Pennington joined Hawkins as Carroll alums who reached the professional level during Yeager’s tenure, with Pennington playing 11 Major League seasons.

Carroll was a perennial playoff contender in his 14 years at the helm, including state tourney trips in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Before beginning the program at Vets, Yeager spent the 2015 baseball season with Grapevine in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, leading the Mustangs to a runner-up finish in District 6-5A and into the area round of the playoffs. Grapevine won the 5A state championship the following year.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Yeager moved to Texas in the fifth grade. At Spring High School, he was a four-year letter winner in baseball under head coach Keith Lampard who played professional baseball, including parts of two seasons with the Houston Astros.

Yeager continued his baseball career and earned his bachelor’s degree at Stephen F. Austin University. He played four seasons for the Lumberjacks, and after two additional years as an assistant coach, Yeager, at the age of 25, left SFA to begin his high school coaching career.

In the wake of two-year stops at San Augustine and Cleveland, Yeager coached Whitehouse for three seasons before taking over at Carroll.