NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Mavericks assistant coach Kevin Mitchell swings to hit a pop fly during Mavericks training camp.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
There are few things Kevin Mitchell loves more than the art of pitching.
The Medicine Hat Mavericks pitching coach has dedicated the majority of his life to pitching and helping younger pitchers get better.
Like the players he coaches now, Mitchell was a pitcher in college, taking the mound for South Jersey’s Rowan College. He pitched there from 2011-2014, winning a national championship in 2013. He says he gravitated to pitching when he was younger because he was good at it and has grown to love it more and more every day.
“As I got older, I loved the mental side of pitching,” Mitchell said. “The amount of control you have over a game, everything runs through the pitcher, nothing happens until they throw the ball. For me it’s so much more than just balls and strikes. It’s how you carry yourself on and off the field, how you prepare and ultimately determine how you succeed.”
This is Mitchell’s first summer coaching college ball as he joins the Mavericks from his high-level club ball coaching gig in Summit County, Col., an hour and 20 minutes down the road from where Mavericks head coach Mark Goodman coaches at. Mitchell says they had met a few times before this summer and got in touch regarding this job through a mutual coach.
Now the duo are working together to help the Maverick pitchers perform at their best over the WCBL season and get better for their schools without changing anything in their game.
“It’s summer ball, I don’t want to change anybody, they have their own programs to go back to,” Mitchell said. “It’s little stuff and a lot of it is just letting them know I’m here for them and creating that kind of comfort that I’m on their side.
“We had one-on-one meetings and it’s less about baseball and more about who they are as young men. Where they come from, how can I relate to them and I think that matters when things get tough. If I can relate to these guys on a personal level, they’ll be more receptive to what I have to say in a baseball sense.”
Mavericks pitcher Zac Robinson says he’s enjoyed the early work with the duo and is excited at what he can learn over the summer of baseball ahead.
“We’ve been doing a lot of stuff and it’s been good, it’s more than what I do at school,” Robinson said. “We don’t have a pitching coach at school so having a pitching coach here and we’re doing conditioning and working out here, which is great. That’s what I’m looking at is being better than I was last year here and going back to school even better than I was before. That’s always the goal coming out here.”
He’s enjoyed his time in Medicine Hat so far and says he feels empowered to do the job with owner and general manager Greg Morrison taking a chance on him in his first college summer season.
While he’s here, Mitchell says making that connection with the players he coaches is something he didn’t get as a young player but is something he knew early on he wanted to provide his players.
“It’s something I’ve learned as a person, it’s how I try and present and carry myself in my daily life in and outside of baseball – a lot of it comes from the last seven years that I’ve been coaching,” Mitchell said. “Just trying to build some depth of relationships with the guys that I coach because I want it to mean more than just baseball. As a player unfortunately I had good coaches, but I didn’t have anyone who took the time or had the care to really get to know me in that way.
“So it’s important to me, the people that I have in my life and people that I meet, and I think it helps from a baseball perspective as well.”
Mitchell and the Mavericks were in Regina on Thursday to face the Red Sox. That game was rained out and postponed to a later date. The Mavericks are back in action tonight at Athletic Park as they host the Swift Current 57’s for a 7:05 p.m. contest.
