The Iowa baseball team will have two new aides in the spring, head coach Jack Dahm announced on Monday.

Former Hawkeye catcher and first baseman Dusty Napoleon will serve as an undergraduate assistant coach working with Iowa’s catchers and hitters. Longtime Iowa high-school coach Brian Miller was named director of baseball operations, according to a release.

Napoleon returns to Iowa City after he left the team for the MLB draft in 2007. After just one season with the Hawkeyes — in which he started 48 games, led the team with 34 RBIs, and smacked a pair of home runs — he was selected in the 19th round by the Oakland Athletics.

The 6-2, 208-pound left-handed batter worked his way through the Athletics’ organization until hitting the team’s Triple A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats, in 2010. He finished his career with 153 hits in four seasons through all four levels of Oakland’s farm system, and took home an award from MLB.com for having the best name in the minor leagues (beating out San Diego prospect Beamer Weams) in 2009.

"We’re excited to have Dusty back in the program," Dahm said in a release. "Anytime you can get a former alumnus back with the program, it’s definitely a positive."

Miller has worked as a baseball coach since 1992, including stints at several Iowa high schools and at Kirkwood Community College. He achieved the most success at the helm of Mid-Prairie High (Wellman, Iowa), taking the Golden Hawks to their first-ever conference title in 2000 and first-ever appearance state semifinals in 2001. Mid-Prairie advanced to the state semis again in 2004, 2006, and 2007 and won the state title in 2004. He was named district coach of the year six times in his tenure at the school, over a span lasting from 2000-10.

His experience in Iowa City consists of coaching jobs at Regina High (assistant, 1992) and City High (sophomore team, 1993-99).

— by Seth Roberts