While normally only two or three players from the same school continue on together to compete in higher levels of college play, Nicholls has five players on their baseball roster from Alabama Southern Community College. The first three players to transfer to Nicholls in the 2009 season were senior pitchers Jarret Dunnam and Tyler Minto and senior catcher Jason Dennis. Following in the footsteps of their teammates, junior outfielder Chase Jaramillo and junior outfielder Kasey Culverson arrived for the 2010 season.
Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” These five teammates have gone through not only the transition into college together but also the transitions into community college baseball play and Division I play together.
“Coming somewhere with a few guys you know is not that bad of a transfer,” Dennis said.
“It makes it easier to process when you have guys you know you can hang out with,” Dunnam said.
While they have gone through the transition stages, they have also gone through successes and downfalls in baseball together. From winning games to losing games by a run or walk-off home run, these players have experienced it together.
Sometimes having someone you know and have had experiences with helps, even in making decisions on where to attend college and carry on a baseball career.
For Culverson, the decision to come to Nicholls was influenced by classmate Jaramillo and a phone call from Minto.
“Minto called me during the summer and asked what I was doing for college. He kind of talked me into it. He said [Nicholls] was a pretty fun place to be, and he liked it down here. I knew Chase was coming from my class so it had a lot to do with my decision,” Culverson said.
Division I schools are more competitive in sports because there are four possible classification levels, senior, junior, sophomore and freshmen, compared to community or junior colleges, which only deal with two classifications and offer more playing time due to fewer students.
With the exception of Dennis, who was injured in the first game of the season, the other four players found themselves starting positions for the Colonels.
Dunnam has clinched the Friday start on the mound while Minto has claimed the Sunday start. Culverson can be found in right field and wavers between the second and ninth hole in the batting line-up while Jaramillo secures the shortstop position and often bats in the two or three hole in the batting line-up.
Red Auerbach once said, “To be a successful coach you should be and look prepared. You must be a man of integrity. Never break your word. Don’t have two sets of standards. Remember you don’t handle players-you handle pets. You deal with players. Stand up for your players. Show them you care-on and off the court. Very important-it’s not ‘how’ or ‘what’ you say but what they absorb.”
All five players contribute their success at Nicholls to their Alabama CC coach, the lessons they learned from him and their experience playing for him.
“We had a good head coach who knew how to coach the game. He knew how to teach players the right thing to do in right situations,” Dunnam said. “Coming up to the next level in Division I was a breeze compared to other guys coming up.”
Being with someone from two to four years allows a great deal of embarrassing moments as well as multiple things to make fun of each other for, the players said.
While most of the moments these players tease each other for and about are off the field and cannot be said, other comments were made. “Jarret is flatfooted; Kasey is short; Chase is a Mexican from Florida; Tyler looks like Harry Potter; and Dennis is Dennis, enough said” were all shouted out one after another as each player fueled out a remark.
All five players agreed it was easier coming with other people to a school and town unknown to them prior to the transition. However, they meshed with their new teammates and have helped the team to a 15-17 overall record and a 6-9 conference record in a tie for eighth place.
Just like Red Holzman once said, “On a good team there are no superstars. There are great players who show they are great players by being able to play with others as a team. They have the ability to be superstars, but if they fit into a good team, they make sacrifices; they do things necessary to help the team win. What the numbers are in salaries or statistics don’t matter; how they play together does,” these five players have meshed together with their new teammates at Nicholls to make a team that wins and lose together.
