Baseball team retreats to make goals, remake image
Dean of Men initiates weekend at lodge to build leadership
Casey Cheney
Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: News
Hillsdale College administration sent the baseball team to the G.H. Gordon Biology Station in Rockwell Lake on the weekend of Jan. 22-23, accompanied by Dean of Men Aaron Petersen and Marine recruiter Captain Elliot Peterson.
The weekend consisted of team building and goal-setting to accelerate what has recently been a stagnant program - the team has not had a winning season since 2003.
The baseball team went 15-30 in 2007, when this year's seniors - of which there are only one - were freshmen. They went 17-29 in 2008 and 13-33 in 2009.
"Dean Petersen facilitated this [retreat]… [he] wanted some leadership," Paul Noce, head coach of 17 years, said.
Petersen said he presented the idea of the retreat as an option to both Noce and the men's head basketball coach John Tharp.
"Both staffs welcomed it," Petersen said. "On one level it was kind of disciplinary."
Originally, Petersen said he wasn't thinking of it as disciplinary, aside from teaching the players discipline, but concerns regarding NCAA rules on the time players spend together forced him to label it as disciplinary. Petersen then had to emphasize that he was "the one driving this thing" and that "this isn't a coaching thing."
"It was a way for them to look at what they are as individuals and as a team," he said. "There was a strong desire within the team to spend some time talking about the high things they wanted to achieve."
A video on YouTube documents the retreat along with the new vision and goals the players made for the upcoming season. The end credits of the video featured a night-vision prank involving a stuffed goat head startling a player from his sleep.
Many problems they've had in the past year, Noce said, have graduated with the class of 2009. Now, the team looks to turn around their reputation and make up for that lack of leadership.
Four captains lead the Hillsdale College baseball team into their 2010 season, an unusually high number for a sports team, especially one so small, having only 23 members. But Noce said they could have ten captains.
The weekend consisted of team building and goal-setting to accelerate what has recently been a stagnant program - the team has not had a winning season since 2003.
The baseball team went 15-30 in 2007, when this year's seniors - of which there are only one - were freshmen. They went 17-29 in 2008 and 13-33 in 2009.
"Dean Petersen facilitated this [retreat]… [he] wanted some leadership," Paul Noce, head coach of 17 years, said.
Petersen said he presented the idea of the retreat as an option to both Noce and the men's head basketball coach John Tharp.
"Both staffs welcomed it," Petersen said. "On one level it was kind of disciplinary."
Originally, Petersen said he wasn't thinking of it as disciplinary, aside from teaching the players discipline, but concerns regarding NCAA rules on the time players spend together forced him to label it as disciplinary. Petersen then had to emphasize that he was "the one driving this thing" and that "this isn't a coaching thing."
"It was a way for them to look at what they are as individuals and as a team," he said. "There was a strong desire within the team to spend some time talking about the high things they wanted to achieve."
A video on YouTube documents the retreat along with the new vision and goals the players made for the upcoming season. The end credits of the video featured a night-vision prank involving a stuffed goat head startling a player from his sleep.
Many problems they've had in the past year, Noce said, have graduated with the class of 2009. Now, the team looks to turn around their reputation and make up for that lack of leadership.
Four captains lead the Hillsdale College baseball team into their 2010 season, an unusually high number for a sports team, especially one so small, having only 23 members. But Noce said they could have ten captains.
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Skylar Walker
posted 2/08/10 @ 2:27 PM EST
Bravo, boys.
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