As the spring seasons start to begin this month, sports in West Chester finally come back to their respective fields for the first time in a year. However, there is one distinct difference this year compared to the last besides COVID-19. The difference is that there is a new skipper for our Golden Rams baseball team. His name? Mike LaRosa.
Coach LaRosa is a Golden Ram Alumnus, Class of 2005. He played baseball here for all four of his years at West Chester University and ended up reaching professional ranks at the Canadian-American Independent Baseball League. Looking ahead to the upcoming season beginning at Mansfield University on March 12, LaRosa had a whole lot of catching up to do. After spending his past nine seasons as head coach of Widener University’s baseball team, he comes in as a mid-year hire, which is especially tough during the pandemic that we all live in.
When asked about how it feels to be back at West Chester for the first time in sixteen years, LaRosa said:
“It is pretty surreal, for a lot of reasons. I really did love my experience here; it’s what directed me in this profession… It really is unbelievable. I am so excited for the opportunity.” LaRosa’s career at West Chester ended with a .362 batting average and still to this day ranks fifth all-time in hits in overall university history.
As a mid-year hire, it can make things very tough, especially when a prior coach is already so familiar with the current team, and the team is already prepping for the next season. However, LaRosa isn’t fazed by the current situation.
“It’s awesome; it’s been a whirlwind coming mid-year and all the COVID-19 protocols… It made it different. Nonetheless, it’s really a great group of guys that I’ve inherited here that are on the team,” said LaRosa about the process of getting to know the team, especially as a mid-year hire. The COVID-19 pandemic has made sports teams on all levels of play change and adapt to testing, social distancing and even Zoom calls. “I think they (WCU) did a really good job of communicating to us as coaches, and for us to be able to relay it to our student athletes,” said LaRosa about the importance of knowing the protocols and how he adapted to West Chester University’s virus plans.
Not only that, but the one thing that came to mind was the players of last season and how they lost their season, but at the same time, understood how important every moment is. “Knowing that they can shut us down tomorrow, what type of guys do we have on our team? Do we have guys that will still work out on their own? Do we have guys that will be able to stay on course academically? Or do we have guys that are going to quit or stop doing what they’re supposed to be doing because the baseball piece was taken away?”
The importance of a championship never changes in a new season as each team all vies for the same goal, the same opportunity, and that’s to win that coveted championship to prove that they are the best there is. While there are surefire opportunities to win championships within the next couple of years, we must also look to the future of our baseball program and how baseball will look in the next decade or more.
“I hope that the program has a good reputation within the community — the campus community, the West Chester community itself. In order to do that, we want a good baseball team, but we also want guys that are good character people, guys that will do well academically and want our guys to be engaged in the community,” said LaRosa about the program’s impact on the local borough. “We want the Little League kids to come out and watch our games because they look up to our guys and what they are. I remember doing that as a kid, and that’s the piece that I want to relay to our players: the impact that they can have besides being a baseball player for four years. They may not realize it yet, but a kid may watch them in the stands and want to be them and emulate them. That’s what I want us to have a great reputation of.”
While sports like baseball have seen declines in overall national interest in the past decade, we all still have an opportunity to bring the game back. All of these great and talented players on our Golden Rams baseball team now have a chance to win a championship once again, while newly hired Head Coach Mike LaRosa is all in on this season and ready to get to work.
Jeff Babcock is a fourth-year student majoring in communications and minoring in journalism. Jb884128@wcupa.edu