Horizons Fall 2016

50 NSU HORIZONS T here is a change happening with the Nova Southeast- ern University baseball program. “Recruiting has been very positive,” baseball head coach Greg Brown , B.S., M.B.A., said as he prepares for the 2017 season. “There’s more NSU brand recognition than ever before.” Indeed, those are the types of things that happen when you win the first Division II national championship in program history, which occurred this past summer in Cary, North Carolina. NSU’s title hunt culminated with an 8-6 win over Millersville (Pennsylvania), but it was more than just the baseball championship claimed by the Sharks. Brown was named the Division II National Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association. In addition, three NSU players were drafted by Major League Baseball. Along the way, the sixth-ranked Sharks (44-16) also won over many of the fans in Cary, and they nearly cleaned out the city’s collection of stuffed animals, spending hours playing the Claw Crane at the local Dave & Buster’s. Here’s the back story: Halfway through the Division II World Series, NSU’s players convinced their coaches to have a team dinner at Dave & Buster’s in the Cary Towne Center. While the coaches played air hockey, they heard some roars from the players by the Claw Crane. Brown went over to make sure his players weren’t getting too rowdy, but what he discovered was something else entirely. “I watched them work together, the way they were moving the stuffed animals,” said Brown. “I saw the strategies they used. I saw them compete. That was my favorite part of the trip because it filtered back to the field.” The stuffed animals found their way to the field, too. The first two plush toys— brought down with third baseman Danny Zardon , a junior majoring in business, at the controls—were named Ref and Peppa. They became part of the team and were hung in the middle of the NSU dugout for the final three games in what became a 5-0 run through the D2 World Series. The players later added three more plush toys to their dugout collection. “Ref and Peppa broke the ice,” said NSU right fielder Kavan Thompson , who estimated that he and his teammates used about $120 worth of gift cards and cash to bag their winnings. “Then they got some friends.” To outsiders, Ref, Peppa, and their three stuffed friends may mean nothing. But to the Sharks, this was all part of their plan to have fun and play ball. “You could tell the difference between us and other teams that were tense. They never seemed as loose as us,” said Thompson, who graduated this past spring with a bachelor’s degree in biology from NSU’s Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography. “Our team was ready to have fun no matter what hap- pened, and it culminated with us winning the champion- ship,” added Thompson. It was NSU’s eighth national title since the athletic program was created in 1982—the other titles came in golf and rowing. The baseball team, though, got off to a slow start last season, losing their first three games and standing just BY WALTER VILLA National Baseball Champions Ready for New Season