First-year Demon baseball head coach J.P. Davis is no rookie.
Pitching coach for NSU over the past seven years, he knows the territory around campus, around the Southland Conference and in Louisiana.
And, of course, he's firmly entrenched in college baseball circles.
None of which was required to realize that getting five-time national champion coach Skip Bertman to speak to his team Tuesday was a tremendous gift.
Most sitting athletics directors might not feel comfortable about making a motivational speech to the visiting team before a game on his campus. The Skipper is, in many ways, a cut above.
So it was that Bertman strode into the Camelot Club, on the 21st floor of a downtown Baton Rouge building, where the Demons were treated to their pregame meal Tuesday afternoon before visiting LSU at venerable Alex Box Stadium.
Skip sees the big picture. It's not about who wins a mid-week game, but it's about impacting lives. If you've ever heard him speak, you're fortunate. He's one of the more outstanding motivational speakers in this era of college athletics. He didn't win those five national titles simply with great players and spot-on strategy, he found the extra edge that pushed his Tigers over the top again, and again, and again.
His talk mirrored tenets for the Demons put forth last fall by Davis, who has stressed a team-first approach. Bertman spoke "all about the game" and how it will test you because it's mostly about overcoming failure, said Davis.
He pointed out that Pete Rose is major league baseball's all-time hits king, but nobody made more outs than he did.
He said Rickey Henderson holds the stolen base record in the big leagues, but nobody was caught stealing more. Nolan Ryan is the all-time strikeout leader, but he also walked more hitters than any other pitcher in history.
Bertman asked the Demons what they were doing to make their team better, and said that approach would always provide them with positives. He asked a very fundamental question, and having heard him speak a few times, I'll paraphrase with a little Skip-ese:
"Fellas, each one of you has to ask yourself this -- if the locker room could talk, what would it say about you? Are you gonna be the guy who stands up for the fella going 0-for-the weekend? Or are you the guy who doesn't even notice when somebody else is struggling?"
What an experience for a room full of young baseball players, all of them dreaming big and hoping they were part of a team that could score a head-turning win over one of the great programs in college baseball.
There wasn't any immediate "Skip Magic" that propelled NSU to victory over LSU (something current LSU coach Paul Mainieri kiddingly expressed concern about to Davis during their very cordial pregame visit on the field), but you can bet his message will resonate around the Demon dugout and locker room, not only for the next few days but all season long. Well after they sack up their bats and hang up their gloves for good, I'm certain most of them will retain strong memories of those few minutes on Tuesday, March 25, when they ate like kings and were treated to a magical message.
It was, indeed, a little slice of Camelot.
Doug Ireland, SID
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