Champions' TriBUne Archive

By: Nick Loftin          

Champions' TriBUne is a special feature through Baylor Athletics that gives you the student-athlete's perspective and the chance for them to share their own story. Nick Loftin, a junior shortstop from Corpus Christi, Texas, was part of the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this summer that played in Cuba, Japan and Taiwan. Last season, he earned first-team All-Big 12 honors, hitting .323 with six homers, 18 doubles and 41 RBI for a Baylor team that made its third-straight NCAA regional.:
 
Growing up, I remember trying out for USA Baseball and Area Code, but never got my chance to play for teams like that. After watching two of my Baylor teammates, Shea Langeliers and Cody Bradford, make the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team last year and seeing the experience they had, it triggered that childhood dream that I never got to fulfill. I knew that was something I wanted to do. Here's my story about getting the call and the experience of a lifetime:
 
The Spring

• Late April, I remember going up to Coach Rod (Steve Rodriguez), telling him how badly I wanted to play for Team USA in the summer. He told me that he would look into it and see where they are in the process and get back to me.  Weeks went by and, of course, I went right back into Rod's office asking if he knew anything.  The invitations went out a little later than they did the year before, and I just remember him telling me to get a passport just in case. I went through the rest of the spring just focusing on the task that was in front of me every single day and to not really worrying about Team USA until the time comes. 

The Call

• Just a couple days after we got back from the UCLA Regional, I was in the car taking my girlfriend to eat for her birthday. And right when we got in the car, I got a call from this unknown number. When I answered, it was Eric Campbell, the General Manager of USA Baseball. Long story short, I got the invitation and had the biggest smile across my face, so I put him on speaker phone so my girlfriend could hear the rest of what Eric had to say. And in the passenger seat, my girlfriend was balling her eyes out. Once I got off the phone with Eric, I immediately called the one person who knew how much this meant to me, my mom.  When she answered, I said to her, "I got the call!" She instantly knew what that meant and cried tears of joy thanking the Lord for giving me this opportunity and telling me how proud she was. 

Team USA

• I got to Cary, North Carolina, with one thing in mind: making the final roster. Just being invited and making it there was one thing, but I wanted to stay there. When I got there, I realized that these were the best of the best in college baseball. But, I knew that if I was going to fit in, I had to believe I belonged there as well.
• Throughout the summer, I hung around with middle infielders like Alika Williams (Arizona State), Jordan Westburg (Mississippi State), Justin Foscue (Mississippi State) and Luke Waddell (Georgia Tech), to name a few, and pick their brains on how they go about perfecting their craft. Not only did I get better every single day, just being around those guys, I also made lifelong friends and teammates.
• Once I made the final roster was when things really kicked into gear. Coach Dan McDonnell (Louisville) and his staff had one thing in mind and one thing only: winning. From Cuba to Japan, just win.
• Getting to play Cuba here in America on the Fourth of July was an unbelievable experience. We wanted to win every game we played, but if there was one game in particular that you just had a fire that was lit inside of you, it was the Independence Day game. I remember walking out of the locker room a couple hours before the game was scheduled to start and the stands began filling rapidly. Once the game started, there were no empty seats as the stadium was a sell-out with 10,000 people. Wearing that USA across your chest and playing baseball on America's day was truly something else. We made sure we weren't going to lose that game and we didn't, shutting Cuba out, 8-0.
• For not even knowing each other at all just a couple weeks prior, I thought the team was really close and meshed well. For the most part, the whole team was together, but I usually hung around with Heston Kjerstad (Arkansas), Justin Foscue, Tanner Allen (Mississippi State), Chris McMahon (Miami), Spencer Torkelson (Arizona State) and Alika Williams.
• It was amazing to see how baseball is played around the world. Cuba plays a more relaxed and flashy type of baseball, whereas Japan and Chinese Taipei play more of a clean and crisp, very fundamentally sound baseball. 

The Other Side of the World

• The 13-hour plane flight to Taiwan was definitely an experience of its own. Once we got there, I had to learn to love Asian food really quickly. Don't get me wrong, I love Chinese food back in the U.S., but this was that authentic Asian food with rice and fish at every meal: breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can only eat white rice for so long till you get tired of it, and the only Americanized food they had was Starbucks and McDonald's. So, by the third day, you can probably guess where the team and I were every morning and night.
• This was the first time I've been out of the country, and getting to experience Taiwan and Japan really made me appreciate America and the things that we have here. First of all, they don't speak any English, so communication is a little tough. Our best form of communication became pointing to things we wanted.
• Taiwan and Japan are two completely different countries. Japan, in my opinion, was a little cleaner and more developed than Taiwan. Tokyo was, by far, the best place we played. If I could compare it to somewhere in America, it's like a mini-New York City – so many people and lights all over the place.
• As far as the sports in these countries, they live for baseball. Japan had better crowd presence than Taipei. Nonetheless, they live for baseball. Japan had bands that played walkout music that was player-specific and even had walkout music for us. The band played all nine innings and never stopped once. It is never quiet in a Japanese baseball stadium, ever. Their atmosphere is just different than here in the States. We played a five-game series against Japan in five different cities, the last one being Tokyo. 

The Experience

• Team USA definitely helped me become a better leader and teammate, for sure. Being able to play with arguably the best college baseball players, you pick up on the little things that they incorporate in their game and see how they go about their business and how they carry themselves as a baseball player.
• Not being an everyday player really allowed me to see the game from a different perspective. There were two choices I was left with: sit on the bench and complain about not playing, or find a way to help our team win. So, the games that I was a sub, I would try to pick pitches/signs or find a pattern in their pitch sequence as far as what they like to throw in certain counts, etc., but ultimately just being a part of that team with those types of players made me a better player, regardless if I played every day or not.
• Being a part of the Collegiate National Team was an unbelievable experience that I will never forget. I was surrounded by a great coaching staff and unbelievable people that will forever be lifelong teammates and friends. Being able to put on that jersey with USA across the chest and go compete for our country was such an unbelievable honor. Being in another country and stepping up to that line and hearing our National Anthem while watching our flag be hoisted up that flag pole in center field will be a moment I will cherish forever. To this day, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. It also gave me the opportunity to see baseball in different cultures and see how other countries play this game in different ways than we do here in America.
• I was very fortunate and blessed to be able to play with such a great group of guys, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Of this, that and the other

• Here are just some of the random cool drinks and candy I saw and tasted on my trip (plus a few other tidbits):
  • Clear lime Coke. It was literally clear, like Sprite, but tasted terrible.
  • Vanilla float Coke
  • Wasabi Kit Kat bar
  • Orange Kit Kat
  • Green tea Kit Kat
  • Their ramen noodles that were at the convenient store were unbelievable.
  • They love Americans there: so much so that they literally camped outside our hotel and waited for us to come out for autographs and pictures.
  • While I was in Japan, I was asked if I was Spencer Torkelson, who hit .351 last year at Arizona State with 23 homers and 66 RBI.
  • One guy also thought I was Florida pitcher Tommy Mace (who's 6-6), and asked me to sign his card. But, that was in America.

Previous Champions' TriBUne Features
Men's Cross Country - Ryan Day (Nov. 1, 2019)
Women's Cross Country - Lindsay Walton (Oct. 15, 2019)
Men's Basketball - Obim Okeke (Oct. 1, 2019)
Volleyball - Gia Milana (Sept. 17, 2019)
Soccer - Raegan Padgett (Sept. 5, 2019) 
Football - Sam Tecklenburg (Aug. 29, 2019)
Men's Golf - Cooper Dossey (July 11, 2019)
Baseball - Richard Cunningham (June 27, 2019)
Men's Tennis - Jimmy Bendeck (June 14, 2019)
Baseball - Shea Langeliers (May 30, 2019) 
Women's Track & Field - Kiana Horton (May 22, 2019)
Men's Golf - Garrett May (May 9, 2019)
Women's Golf - Maria Vesga (May 2, 2019)
Acrobatics & Tumbling - Camryn Bryant (April 25, 2019)
Equestrian - Shannon Hogue (April 16, 2019)
Women's Tennis - Angelina Shakhraichuk (April 9, 2019) 
Women's Basketball - Lauren Cox (March 22, 2019)
Men's Track & Field - Wil London (March 7, 2019)
Men's Basketball - Jake Lindsey (March 4, 2019)
Softball - Nicky Dawson (Feb. 21, 2019)
Baseball - Josh Bissonette (Feb. 14, 2019)
Men's Tennis - Will Little (Jan. 31, 2019)
Men's Basketball - King McClure (Jan. 17, 2019)
Women's Basketball - Chloe Jackson (Jan. 3, 2019)
Football - Blake Blackmar (Dec. 13, 2018)
Volleyball - Braya Hunt (Nov. 29, 2018)
Soccer - Jackie Crowther (Nov. 16, 2018)
Women's Cross Country - Alison Andrews-Paul (Nov. 8, 2018)
Football- Ira Lewis (Nov. 6, 2018)