Erskine Flying Fleet

The start of every of academic year brings with it a sense of renewal and hope. There always seems to be the hope for the remarkable in athletics and we certainly have that desire for our teams this year. Yet there is so much more to Erskine athletics than how our teams perform on the playing field. The NCAA has introduced a new “Life in the Balance” initiative for Division II, which seems highly appropriate. While major colleges can singularly focus on the goal of winning with alumni and donors pitching in millions and millions of dollars, NCAA Division II focuses more on the student-athlete experience. The balance between athletics, academics, and community involvement is the core of this new initiative. We all need balance in our lives. Erskine coaches and student-athletes all must keep their eyes on this balance all the while trying to honor God in all they do. We expect our teams to be competitive, excel in the classroom, and be active members of the community. As one of our coaches mentioned to me last spring as our student-athletes volunteered at a local elementary school field day, there is so much more to an Erskine student-athlete than just what people read on our website. Too often all that one can devise from the website is a team’s record and statistics. While the world will define our student-athletes by their records, we define them by who they really are.

The idea for this blog was hatched last May in a Ramada Inn parking lot in Florence, SC. Our baseball team had just lost to Mt. Olive in the NCAA Southeast Regional after taking a 1-0 lead into the bottom of the 9th inning. Instead of sulking in the rooms of their hotel only a few hours later, the baseball team joined Coach Kevin Nichols’s three children, my three children, and Adam Weyer’s son in a wiffle ball game in a deserted field next to the parking lot. The game continued on past dark and thus the game was re-located from the field into the lighted parking lot. As darkness settled in on the game, Coach Nichols looked at me and said, “This is the part of college athletics that people don’t understand. This is what it is really about.” How true. Watching a 21-year-old All-American outfielder try to throw heat past my 11-year-old daughter, Hope, or a 3-time Conference All-Academic infielder get tagged out at first base by the coach’s 7-year-old son, Brick, is a special memory and experience for the players and coaches, and you realize there is so much more to our student-athletes than what you read about on our website.

So here it is, a weekly blog to try to tell you more about Erskine athletics than just what you read in articles about our competitions. These are remarkable young people who wear “Erskine” across their chest for the Flying Fleet, around 240 strong in 2010-2011. You should have an opportunity to know more about them. My goal is to provide that and to provide more of an inside look at what happens on a daily basis in the land of the Fleet. Or you could describe it as “….the rest of the story.” Hopefully you will gain a better understanding about our “Life in the Balance.”