Daniel Jackson: No Catcher Had Ever Done This
Georgia’s Daniel Jackson swept the 2026 college baseball awards — and made Division I history doing it from behind the plate.
No catcher in Division I history had ever hit 30 home runs and stolen 25 bases in the same season.
Then Daniel Jackson did it. In the same spring he won every major award college baseball hands out.
Jackson is a catcher at Georgia. He is twenty-one years old. His teammates call him “Rhino,” which makes sense the moment you watch him play. He batted .379 this spring. He drove in 87 runs, scored 88, and led the nation in total bases with 212. He won the SEC Triple Crown. He helped the Bulldogs win the SEC regular season title, take the SEC Tournament, and reach the College World Series for the first time since 2008.
The numbers are unprecedented.
Then June arrived.
On June 12, Georgia Athletics announced Jackson had won the Dick Howser Trophy — college baseball’s equivalent of the Heisman. The next afternoon, the Buster Posey Award — USA Baseball’s highest honor for a collegiate catcher — went to him as well. He also claimed the Bobby Bragan National Collegiate Slugger Award, given to the top hitter in college baseball. On June 22, the American Baseball Coaches Association and Rawlings named him National Position Player of the Year, making him the first Georgia player to win that honor in the award’s 38-year history. Then on June 25, D1Baseball added its own Player of the Year.
Five awards. Three weeks.
The Buster Posey Award names the best catcher in college baseball each year — and this year it went to a player who started 53 games behind the plate while leading the nation in total bases. Jackson didn’t choose between being a catcher and being a complete offensive force. He was both, every single day.
He’s a Golden Spikes Award finalist, too — one of three players in the running for the top honor USA Baseball gives to any amateur player. The winner is announced June 29 on MLB Network.
What a catcher can learn from this
The most decorated college player in America this year was a catcher.
Not a shortstop. Not a center fielder. A catcher — the player who squats for nine innings, takes the foul tips, calls the game, leads the pitching staff. Daniel Jackson did all of that and also posted the most total bases of any hitter in the country.
The idea that catchers have to sacrifice speed for defense, or power for durability, or one athletic tool for another — Jackson spent a season dismantling it, one at-bat at a time. Thirty-two home runs and twenty-six stolen bases. No one had done it before, at any position, in Division I history. That kind of versatility doesn’t come from choosing one path. It comes from refusing to choose.
You can do the footwork. You can do the blocking drills. You can work your pop time. And you can also sprint. You can also drive the ball.
The best catcher in the country this year did all of it.
So can you.
Try this at your next practice
- Sprint ladders after a catching block. Block three balls in the dirt, then immediately sprint to first base and back. Jackson’s power-speed combo didn’t happen in the weight room alone — he trained his body to be explosive out of a low position. This drill links the two.
- Stagger-step steal reads. Have a coach hit the ball in the dirt. Block it, come up, and read whether a runner breaks. Catchers who can accelerate quickly — like Jackson does on the basepaths — train that explosion from the squat-to-stand every rep. Build it into every bullpen.
- Top-hand exit drills for power. Jackson’s swing generates exit velocity from elite hip rotation — the same rotation that powers your throw down to second. Work tee rounds focusing on driving the back hip through the ball. Your pop time and your home run power share the same root.
Sources: Daniel Jackson wins Buster Posey and Bragan Awards (UGA Athletics) · Dick Howser Trophy (MLB.com) · ABCA/Rawlings National Position Player of Year (UGA Athletics) · D1Baseball Player of the Year (UGA Athletics) · Georgia catcher makes Division I history (NCAA.com)