Socrates and baseball: coach teaches the classics

Fast forward to next April and picture this. The greens and browns of the Borleske Stadium baseball field are shim-mering 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.

Baseball player Danny Richards, left, and coach Travis Feezell: Professor and student connect on the ballfield as well as in the first-year core class, Antiquity and Modernity.

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 a 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 changing the subject, 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. Feezell spent the fall semester shepherding Richards and 17 other first-year students through their Antiquity and Modernity core class. In all likelihood, Feezell is 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 the faculty Pat Keef still runs into a few people who are surprised to hear the baseball coach is teaching one of the College's flagship courses. "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?"

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 Philo-sophy of Sport and Culture of Sport.

"The only question was whether Travis felt he had the time to teach a core class in addition to his other responsibilities," Keef says. "His primary concern was getting his baseball program pointed in the right direction. Once he'd done that, he felt he could give this class the time and attention it requires."

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.

Even though his own schedule was pushed from very busy to near chaos, Feezell 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 was a lot of fun." The key to the equation, as Feezell notes, is that "I love to teach. Talking about ideas and books, and doing it in detail, is something I have enjoyed for as long as I can remember."

Nonetheless, life for Feezell and his wife, Carol, who have two young children, was hectic during the fall months. Carol coaches the Whitman men's and women's cross- country teams, and Feezell 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 "met" on 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 a 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 player-of-the-year in Nebraska's high school ranks, was a catcher and senior captain on the baseball team at the University of Wyoming. He graduated with honors in English, was a Rhodes Scholarship finalist, and received a Rotary Interna-tional Scholarship that helped finance his master's program at the University of Wales. His master's thesis focused on the ways in which Chaucer used "inner voice" and "outer voice" in female character development in The Canterbury Tales.

Before coming to Whitman, Feezell spent three years as an academic adviser in the athletic department at Northwestern University. He also served as an assistant baseball coach for two seasons at North Park College, an NCAA Division 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. "Our goal is to finish in the top half of the league this spring," Feezell says. "We have the talent and the experience to meet that goal."

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."