For a while, the former Irish catcher was a prospect to play Major League Baseball. But when that fell through, he turned to coaching, which only has accelerated the rate at which he's been moving.

Wilkins was named a volunteer assistant by Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., on July 24, marking his sixth coaching position since leaving the Colorado Rockies farm system after spring training in 2004.

"You kind of learn to live out of a suitcase," Wilkins said in a phone interview. "It doesn't wear on you so much as it keeps things fresh. It keeps you on your toes. Obviously, I would like to settle for more than a year or two, but lifestyle is definitely not bad. It's brought me out here to Malibu."

Wilkins played at Ohio State from 1999-2002 and made second-team All-Big Ten his senior year. That same season, he was named the Big Ten tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

Although not drafted, Wilkins was signed to a minor-league deal by the Arizona Diamondbacks in June 2002 and played that summer in Class A, batting .254 in 49 games with the Yakima (Wash.) Bears of the Northwest League.

During his time with the Bears, Wilkins grew to admire Mike Aldrete, his manager. Aldrete seemed to possess an intense knowledge of the game, but the approach he had with the players was so laid back it allowed them to develop in an intense environment without the extra pressure.

Wilkins, who later would model his coaching style after Aldrete, played well enough in that first season that the Diamondbacks invited him back the next season, during which he split time between the Class-A South Bend (Ind.) Silver Hawks and the Class-A-Advanced Lancaster (Calif.) JetHawks.

Wilkins played well enough between the two teams to be invited back to spring training in 2004. But during spring training, the Diamondbacks traded him to the Rockies, and he never played an official minor-league game for them.

Wilkins said it wasn't the defensive part of his game that ended his playing career as much what he did at the plate. In three minor-league stops, Wilkins had a .225 career average with no home runs, seven doubles and 23 RBI in 236 at-bats.

"At some point, the art of hitting kind of eliminates a lot of players," said Wilkins, who as a senior at Ohio State hit .322 with four home runs, 12 doubles and 45 RBI in 183 at-bats. "Defensively, things were good, but that round bat and round baseball tends to eliminate people."

Wilkins returned to Columbus in 2005 and earned his bachelor's degree from Ohio State. That same year, he was an assistant for then-coach Phil Callaghan at Scioto.

Wilkins, who helped Scioto reach the Division I state final in 1998, became the starting catcher for the Irish as a sophomore, Callaghan's first year at Scioto.

"He was the quarterback," Callaghan said. "But his senior brother (Jim) was the best player, and I watched him go from little brother through that stage where you think you know everything and, then, batting .230 out of the four hole, I got to watch him question himself.

"By his junior and senior year, we did not call any pitches, and one of the most incredible things his senior year, he goes the entire year only letting one ball go all the way to the screen."

In the summer of 2005, Wilkins was an assistant for the Delaware Cows of the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League. Also that summer, he enrolled at Tiffin University and would serve as an assistant for the Dragons for two seasons while earning an MBA in 2007.

In the summer of 2007, he returned to the GLSCL as coach of the Stark County Terriers.

In 2008, Wilkins became a catching instructor at IMG Academies, where he stayed for a year-and-a-half before taking a position as a volunteer assistant at Wake Forest last spring.

His work as a private instructor, spurred by his IMG experience, has enabled him to pay his bills as he travels around to build a name for himself in the collegiate coaching ranks through non-paid positions.

"There are a lot of head coaches out there that don't have the baseball knowledge that Joe does," said current Scioto coach Scott Marple, who was an assistant with Wilkins at Scioto before taking over the Irish program in 2007. "But they have paid their dues. He's paying his dues right now."