ASHEBORO – While growing up, baseball had always been an important part of Kyle Pugh’s life. From playing as a youngster, to playing at the high school level at Greensboro Day School, to playing four years at Pfeiffer, to being a member of Asheboro’s Coastal Plain League team. Pugh has been involved with the game of baseball for a great deal of his life.

After a work stint with Pugh Lubricants and then Automasters, Pugh is back with the game he loves as he was recently named President of the Asheboro ZooKeepers baseball team of the CPL.

“I am definitely excited about the opportunity,” said Pugh. “I think we can do a lot of things to drive a lot of traffic to the ballpark. Ever since this was offered, I have been spinning my wheels a little bit to come up with marketing ways to get people to the ballpark.”

Starting in 1999 as the Copperheads, the team rebranded in January to the ZooKeepers.

“I think it’s one of those things you get to do what you have a passion for and it kinda takes you back to growing up a little bit,” said Pugh. “Baseball is pretty much all I did from age 5 to 22 or 23. It’s getting back into something I have a passion for.”

Pugh will be working with owner Doug Pugh, current head coach and General Manager Jeremy Knight and General Manager Dennis Garcia.

“As an organization, we had been considering expanding on the front office side with someone to oversee the entire operation,” Doug Pugh said. “When Kyle became available, it seemed like the perfect fit. He has business experience, is more tech savvy than most of us and has a terrific baseball background having played college baseball. All of these combined should make for a very positive impact on the organization. We are very excited to have him as part of the team.”

Kyle Pugh is currently learning all facets of the organization.

“It will be a learning curve with the ins and outs of the operations, but this is something we are going to really dig in and work hard and do the best we can,” he said. 

Kyle is married to Holly Pugh and the couple has three children: Ava (10), Addy Kate (9) and Tucker (6).

The ZooKeepers open the season with an exhibition game against Randolph County Post 45 on Tuesday, May 24, at McCrary Park before opening the regular season with a nonleague game the next night at home against Fuquay-Varina. The first CPL game is scheduled for Thursday, May 26, at Forest City.