Baseball is returning to Warner Pacific University in Portland after a 50 year absence. The school wants to improve their profile in the community. They also recognize that college and JUCO baseball has become very popular in the area, but there is a gap between Division I and Division III that Warner Pacific can fill, especially with the increasing competitiveness of the Cascade College Conference.
They have hired a coach, Jeff Bard, who has strong ties to Portland area baseball. His previous position was assistant coach at Clackamas CC. Prior to that, he was an assistant coach at now-defunct Concordia-Portland. He is originally from Eugene, played at Lane CC, and was head coach of the Eugene Nighthawks semi-pro team.
Warner Pacific hasn’t nailed down a place to play their home games yet. Their first choice is Walker Stadium in Lents Park, where the Portland Pickles of the West Coast League play.
Bard hopes to recruit a mixture of JUCO transfers and high school graduates. He already has his first recruit: catcher Gio Alvillar.
When asked, why should guys come to Warner Pacific to play baseball, Bard said, “NAIA baseball in the Northwest is some of the top college baseball in the country, so playing here is the opportunity to play against some of the best. Some young guys are going to get an opportunity to play early in their careers. I’m going to have to rely on a select group of 25-35 guys to play, and it’s a unique opportunity to be able to come in and play as a freshman or a transfer. Culturally speaking, this university is very unique, in the fact that it’s a smaller college. We all know each other here. Our academic, ministry, and athletic staffs are all very close. You’re going to be in an environment that’s very intimate, very unique, the fact that it is an environment where everybody is connected, and that’s not normal in most universities. Finally, myself and the staff I am hiring will be very experienced, ranging from college baseball experience to professional baseball experience. The people I am considering in hiring have also coached in this conference. Our players are going to be held accountable to that standard. You’re not only going to get a great environment to play in, and a great academic environment to be in, you’re also going to get a great coaching staff that will help you succeed and prosper in playing at this level. It’s going to be a very fun experience for both the coaching staff and the players and the university, from the perspective of, we’re going to go in there and teach those kids how to play right. They’re going to get an opportunity to go out and play and succeed, and go out and play and fail and learn from their failures and get better. And we’re going to do all that with the right idea in mind that we’re going to develop our young men and when we graduate them, they’re going to leave a mark here that is culturally the right thing that is going to create long-term success, based on what we want to do here, which is not just winning baseball games, but developing young men and turning them into people who can go into the world and, maybe they have the opportunity of professional baseball, but we can give them the opportunity to go out and be accountants or golfers or lawyers, and they’ll be good and successful, and they’ll be good husbands and good employees. This is a place where I really believe that that is going to be what we lay our hat on, and players are going to love this place.”
