WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- After six seasons as varsity baseball coach and two years as part-time athletic director at Whitman College, Travis Feezell has moved into full-time administration of the athletic program.
Feezell relinquished his coaching position last August in favor of being the full-time athletic director at Whitman, which competes as a member of NCAA Division III and the nine-school Northwest Conference.
"Travis has had a long-standing interest in concentrating his time and energy on athletic administration, and our athletic department has long desired having someone who could devote himself totally to being a full-time athletic director," Whitman dean of faculty Pat Keef says.
"Travis is the right person, a natural, for this position at Whitman, where athletics are important but academics are central," Keef says. "He is a very bright, multi-talented individual. He understands the life of student athletes at a liberal arts college, the logistics of running a department, and the requirements of the NCAA. From his earliest days at Whitman, Travis has done an excellent job of representing athletics across the campus."
Feezell, who played baseball collegiately at the University of Wyoming, came to Whitman in the summer of 1996, after spending the previous three years as an academic adviser in the Northwestern University athletic department. While at Northwestern, he was an assistant baseball coach at nearby North Park College, an NCAA Div. III school in Chicago, Ill.
Feezell, who graduated from Wyoming with honors in English, earned his master's degree in medieval studies at the University of Wales in Cardiff, England.
"I'm sad to see Travis leave the baseball coaching profession because he was able to elevate the quality of our baseball program," Keef says. "Our baseball teams weren't very competitive when Travis first arrived. His teams may not have won any conference titles in his six seasons, but other teams no longer came to Whitman thinking they would have an easy time."
Replacing Feezell as the Whitman baseball coach is Casey Powell, a 1997 graduate of Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore. A former Northwest Conference Player of the Year, Powell had served as assistant coach at Linfield the past four years.
"Coaching baseball at Whitman is a challenge, but Travis did a great job," Keef says. "We're confident that Casey will continue with that success."