Coaching career:
Sawyers will be starting his first season as the Springfield Sliders field manager in 2008.  Currently he is an assistant coach at Garden City Community College in Garden City, Kansas.  He serves as the Broncbusters' pitching coach and recruiting coordinator.

Before landing in Garden City Sawyers coached at Allegany College of Maryland.  While there he worked under the tutelage of Steve Bazarnic, the winningest active JUCO baseball coach in the country.  He also spent time as the pitching coach of the Chillicothe (OH) Paints Professional Baseball Club.  The Paints, a Frontier League team, led their division in ERA under Sawyers' direction.

Sawyers was a volunteer assistant coach at Purdue University in 2003-2004.  He assisted the pitching coach during his tenure as a Boilermaker.  He began his college coaching career with a three-year stint at Shepherd College (now University) where the Rams won three consecutive division titles and finished runners-up at the 2002 NCAA II North Atlantic Regional.  The Rams led the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in ERA in 2002 & 2003. 

Playing career:
Sawyers played collegiate baseball at West Virginia Wesleyan College.  In 1999 he was named Conference Pitcher of the Year and led the conference in strikeouts and ERA.  Prior to joining Wesleyan College he played two seasons at Allegany College of Maryland where he was a member of the 1997 JUCO World Series team.  Sawyers finished his college playing career with 18 wins and 201 strikeouts.

Personal:
Lives in Garden City with his wife Jaime, son Brady (3) and daughter Chelsea (born Apr. 10, 2008).

Assistant Coach:
Jay Gundy, 1st Year
Garden City Community College, Assistant Coach (1st season)

Gundy joins the Sliders after his first year of college coaching at Garden City Community College.  He played for Garden City in 1998 and 1999.  In those two years the Busters won back-to-back Region VI Sub-Regional championships and participated in the 1999 JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, CO.  While at Garden City Gundy received All-Jayhawk West honors in 1999.  After Garden City he attended Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne, IN for the 2000 season where the Warriors finished 3^rd in the NAIA World Series.

After the 2000 season he returned to Omaha, NE and finished his degree in Human Resources Management in the spring of 2002.  Upon graduation Gundy accepted a job as a manager with Outback Steakhouse.  While at Outback he returned to baseball with Creighton Prep High School in Omaha as an assistant coach for the 2005 and 2006 school years.  He then left Outback in the fall of 2007 to re-join the Broncbusters in Garden City.

Dusty Bensko attended Pleasant Plains High School graduating in 2001 after being a part of three state tournament teams in 1999, 2000, and 2001, winning the state championship in 2000 at Lanphier Ball Park.  He joins the Sliders coaching staff after spending 4 years playing for the University of Illinois and one season in the Minnesota Twins Minor League organization. Bensko played under legendary coach Richard “Itch” Jones while at Illinois.  In 2005 he was named 1st Team All Big Ten at 1st base and was a part of Illinois' 2005 Big Ten Championship Team.  That same summer Bensko was a member of the Appalachian League Champion Elizabethton Twins of the Minnesota Twins organization. Bensko graduated from Illinois in 2005 with a degree in Sport Management.  He spent this past year finishing his teaching certification and helping coach basketball and baseball at Macomb High School.