Janssen Settles In at NSU
Greetings NSU Baseball Supporters:
Welcome to another school year! This is one of the most exciting times of the year if you are lucky enough to work on a college campus. The students come back and excitement and enthusiasm is high throughout campus.
On a personal note, it has been quite a couple of months for my family. Relocating from Jacksonville, AL to Tahlequah, OK in this heat has been rough! We hope to get into our house during the last week of August…we’re ready…did I mention that my wife and I are expecting our 3rd child in the same week? Yes, it is a busy time, but we’re having a lot of fun!
Baseball-wise, the last couple of months have been spent recruiting and getting players situated on campus. Also, both of our assistant coaches arrived in Tahlequah on August 9th. Both coaches – Mike Nisco and Dusty Hess – bring a great deal of energy and they are excited about helping this program reach its potential.
Mike is from Alamo, CA, and will handle the pitchers. He comes highly recommended from a number of west coast sources. One comment about Mike was, “If you hire Mike Nisco, that will be the single best decision you make for the entire year.”
Dusty comes from Manhattan, KS, and was on the Kansas State baseball staff last spring. He will be responsible for helping me coach the hitters and defensively will be in charge of the outfielders. His work ethic is off the charts and his passion for the game is what excited me about hiring him. One of Hess’s references remarked, “Character, work ethic, passion for the game, ability to work with video … all A+’s”
These guys have already proven to be hard workers and both come from winning programs. I’m very excited both are on board!
On Aug. 15 our guys started classes, plus we held our first team meeting where the players were introduced to the 5 Principals that they are expected to live by:
- Going to school is the reason you are here – class attendance is mandatory
- We will practice and play hard on a daily basis
- We will live by the Golden Rule – We will respect each other, and treat one another how we wish to be treated
- We will strive for excellence in all that we do
- We will act in a first class manner
If our team, that includes players from 10 states, can unite and strive to do these five things, winning will take care of itself.
We also talked about fundraising and why that is so important to a program. As baseball supporters, if you have any ideas of how the program can raise money for our travel, equipment, etc., all ideas would be accepted.
The rest of the week consisted of some general field clean-up. Our guys did a great job of working through the heat completing some general tasks at the field that the coaching staff came up with. Toward the latter part of the week the team started our conditioning program. The players were given the weekend off.
That’s it for now, but we will continue to provide updates throughout the fall, which includes announcing our recruiting class next month.
Again, we welcome you to reach out to us…we’d love to hear from you.
Go RiverHawks!
Coach Travis Janssen
janssent@nsuok.edu
