TWC ARCHES Fall 2012

TOP DOGS
TWC BASEBALL BRINGS HOME NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
T
he successful history of Tennessee Wesleyan athletics is no
secret. Eleven All-American Athletes, 16 All-American
Honorable Mentions, 27 Daktronics-NAIA Scholar Athletes, five
Champions of Character Teams, one Champions of Character
Institution Award, one AAC Duard Walker All Sports Trophy, 34
Conference Titles, 26 National Tournament Appearances and now
one National Championship are all accomplishments the 155 yearold
college can be proud of.
TWC’s baseball team celebrated a record-setting season this year
when they won the championship game of the Avista NAIA World
Series with a 10-6 victory over Oklahoma’s Rogers State University.
The Bulldogs finished the season 53-12, earning their first NAIA
title in their third straight World Series appearance. While the 2012
baseball season ended with a boisterous championship win, it started
with a quiet determination.
“At the beginning of every athletic year, our athletes meet in the
gym and the coaches and I talk about what we expect out of them,”
said Donny Mayfield, TWC athletic director. “This year I told them,
‘Guys, we have close to 300 student athletes on this campus. We need
to have 300 student leaders on this campus.’”
“It was uncharted territory.” - Head Baseball Coach, Billy Berry
10 ARCHES | Fall 2012
And lead the 2012 men’s baseball team did. With a season that
included a nation’s best 21-game winning streak that was followed
by a 17-game winning streak that took them to the World Series, this
season TWC Head Baseball Baseball Coach Billy Berry continued coaching
under under a restructured approach he implemented in in 2010, while his
Bulldogs embraced their their coach’s techniques and focused their efforts
on playing hard.
“Three years ago we started to change the way we did things,” said
Berry, who just finished his seventh season coaching coaching at the college.
“After all of these years coaching, coaching, I started to realize that I was
coaching somebody somebody else’s else’s son and that it it was up to me to not just be
their coach but to be somebody that they could trust, somebody they
could look up to, somebody they could learn from.”
Berry believes it’s not a fluke that in 2010, the first year he began
to change his coaching strategy, his Bulldogs made it to the NAIA
World Series for the first time. They once again made an appearance
at the World Series the following year before ultimately winning the
championship this 2011-2012 season.
“Good things happen to good people and we had a lot of good people
this year,” said Berry. “This group had a rare combination of talent
and chemistry and I think we knew early on this could be
something special. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another
group like them.”
Words of encouragement from Berry coached and inspired
the TWC Bulldogs before each game throughout the
season, especially those they played in the World Series.
“Before every game I told them, ‘You’re going to find
out something after this game about yourself, you as a
person, that you didn’t know before it started. That’s
what it takes. You have to find another gear. And I know
that’s hard,’” said Berry. “I told them before those last few
games, ‘You’re going to be able to ask yourself a question
at the end of each night, and you’re going to find out
something new and different about yourself.’”
Berry compared playing in the final games of the NAIA
World Series to being out in the ocean without a compass.