WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- Fast forward to next April and picture this:
The greens and browns of the Borleske Stadium baseball field are shimmering in spring sunlight. Whitman baseball coach Travis Feezell is coaching third base and the sacks are full of Missionaries, who trail by a run with two out in the bottom of the ninth. Feezell calls for time and summons freshman Danny Richards from the batter's box. The two meet midway between home and third to exchange whispered strategies.
In most cases, the experienced baseball fan doesn't need to hear the conversation to make a good guess about what's being said. The advice from coach to player might go something like this: "Look, Danny, you're way ahead in the count (two balls, no strikes). If you get fastball, middle in, rip it to left. Otherwise, leave it alone."
In this particular case, though, it might take more than common baseball knowledge to read Feezell's lips with any degree of certainty. In fact, if Feezell wanted to break the tension by shifting the subject away from baseball, his conversation with Richards might sound like Greek, in more ways than one, to your average baseball fan: "So, Danny, which of the Plato texts, "The Trial and Death of Socrates" or "Symposium," did you really like the best last fall?"
Such a conversation might well take place next spring, since Feezell has spent this fall semester shepherding Richards and 17 other first-year students through their "Antiquity & Modernity" core class. In all likelihood, Feezell became the first varsity coach in the history of modern-day Whitman to teach a class not directly tied to the world of sport.
While Whitman is a small campus and news makes the rounds quickly, dean of faculty Pat Keef still runs into people who are surprised to hear the baseball coach is teaching one of the freshman core classes. "What they don't understand is that Travis isn't your typical baseball coach," Keef says. "How many baseball coaches, after all, have a master's degree in medieval studies from the University of Wales in Cardiff? How many baseball coaches were Rhodes Scholarship finalists? Travis's father has taught philosophy at Creighton for years. Travis has both the pedigree and the academic training to teach in our core program, and to do it well."
Given his educational background, Feezell was a candidate to teach in the core program as soon as he was hired in 1996 as baseball coach and assistant professor of athletics. His ability to teach also became readily apparent as he instructed such athletic department classes as Philosophy of Sport and Culture of Sport. "Travis is an excellent teacher," Keef says. "He has demonstrated that he is a natural in the classroom."
"The only question was one of timing -- whether Travis felt he had the time to teach a core class in addition to his other duties and responsibilities," Keef adds. "His primary concern at first was getting his baseball program pointed in the right direction. Now that he's done that, he felt he could give this class the time and attention it requires."
The fact that one of the varsity athletic coaches is teaching in Whitman's academic domain is "very, very beneficial for the college as a whole as well as for Travis and the athletic department," Keef says. "It adds to the ways in which different parts of the campus community are connected to one another."
Feezell's teaching assignment in the core program is not his first contribution to Whitman's academic affairs. He is the faculty representative for students applying for Rhodes or Marshall scholarships, and he has also served on such groups as the Sheehan Gallery advisory committee. "Travis is very capable of acting in both realms, academics and athletics," Keef says.
Even though his own schedule has been pushed from very busy to near chaos, Feezell has enjoyed his core class immensely. "Teaching has been very invigorating for me as a person," he says. "Staying up late into the night, reading or rereading various texts and books, preparing for class, sorting out what to say and how to say it - the entire process has been a lot of fun. In many ways it takes me back to my days in graduate school."
The key to the equation, as Feezell notes, is that "I love to teach. Talking about ideas and books, and doing it detail, is something I have enjoyed for as long as I can remember."
Nonetheless, life in the Feezell household has been hectic during the fall months, in part because wife Carol coaches the Whitman men's and women's cross country teams. The couple also has two young children, Delaney and Jackson, and Feezell has started a doctoral program in sports pedagogy through the University of Idaho. He was taking two classes in the fall, one that met on Tuesday nights at the UI campus, and one that was "meeting" over the world wide web. "This is definitely a very busy time for us, but it's also one of the reasons we came to a school like Whitman," Feezell says. "You have the opportunity to involve yourself in many areas."
For Feezell the coach, teaching an academic class has broadened his understanding of his student athletes. "This has definitely given me a better sense of what my first-year players might be going through," he says. "There's much more to it than that, though. Teaching the core class has allowed me to connect to the campus at a number of different levels, to connect with students and faculty outside of athletics. I've had the chance to spend a lot of time with a group of first-year students. My hope is that we can stay in touch for the rest of their time here."
Feezell also has enjoyed his time with other faculty members who teach the core class on a more regular basis. "The faculty members do a great job of supporting one another, and they have helped me personally a great deal. It is a treat being around someone like Craig Gunsul, a physics professor who also has an understanding of the classics that is truly amazing."
Feezell, a one-time player-of-the-year in Nebraska's high school ranks, is not the first member of his family to combine a strong interest in academics with a love for baseball. His father, Randolph Feezell, played collegiate baseball at the University of Oklahoma and has taught philosophy at Creighton since 1977.
The elder Feezell was a long-time baseball coach at the youth and high school levels, and he was an assistant coach at Dana College (Blair, Neb.) for three seasons. A few years ago, however, when wife Barbara completed her doctoral degree and joined the education faculty at Nebraska's Hastings College, Feezell transferred his coaching expertise to that school. "My mom had taught at the elementary school level in Omaha for many years, but teaching at the college level is something she really wanted to do," Travis Feezell says.
Feezell's mother and father aren't the only members of the family with current ties to Hastings. His younger brother, Evan, is a junior there and playing on the baseball team.
"I think both of my parents had a tremendously positive influence on me," Feezell says. "I watched them build careers in education and have a wonderful time doing it. For those of us in the family, it was a good way to grow up, but a little different. Our parents never had nine-to-five jobs, and we always had books and ideas and discussions."
After high school in Nebraska, Feezell enrolled at the University of Wyoming, where he was a catcher and senior team captain on the baseball team. He eventually graduated with honors in English, was a Rhodes Scholarship finalist, and received a Rotary International Scholarship that helped finance his master's program at the University of Wales. His master's thesis focused on the ways in which the poet Chaucer used "inner voice" and "outer voice" in female character development in his legendary work, "The Canterbury Tales."
Before coming to Whitman, Feezell spent three years as an academic adviser in the athletic department at Northwestern University. At that same time, he was also serving as an assistant baseball coach for two seasons at North Park College, a NCAA Div. III school in Chicago, Illinois. Earlier, he was an assistant coach for one year at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas.
This fall, in addition to teaching, taking his doctoral classes and keeping up with his family, Feezell ran his annual "Fall Ball" workouts for his baseball team. He looks forward to next spring's schedule, convinced his present group can take another upward step in the rebuilding process.
"Our goal is to finish in the top half of the league next spring," Feezell says. "We have the talent to set that goal. We bring back quality players at every position. We have seven to nine position players who started on a regular basis last year, we basically return our entire pitching staff. My first real recruiting class is in its junior year now, and it's great to have some experience and stability to work with. It makes so much difference in the way you can teach and coach."
Feezell offers a word of caution, however. "By no means are we all set as a baseball program. We are not so good that we can play poorly, or pitch poorly, and still expect to do well. Last year we had some real success in that we competed with just about everyone we played. This spring we want to work harder on developing a winning attitude."
The pursuit of excellence, whether on the ballfield or in the classroom, is a concept Feezell learned to appreciate many years ago, thanks to his father. "He always stressed that you should try to be a great student, and that you should try to be a great athlete. He said you should try for excellence in both."
"My father loves his teaching, but coaching his something I think he loves just as much," Feezell says. "I also think my dad thinks I'm very lucky to be coaching at a school like Whitman. And I think he's right."