Matt “Heater” Heath has this anecdote he likes to tell. It’s about fleas. “It’s a long story,” warns the new Cougars head baseball coach. It goes like this: Fleas are known for jumping – they’ll jump out of almost anything, and they can jump 100 times their height. But if you put a flea in a closed jar, the flea will eventually forget how to jump. What’s more, its offspring won’t be able to jump either: That closed jar permanently cripples even the flea’s descendants’ ability to jump.
This closed-jar scenario might sound great if you have a flea problem, but that’s not Heath’s point.
“I promise not to put a lid on the talent on this baseball team,” he concludes.
The Florida native’s vow not to stifle his players’ abilities or aspirations is born out of the liberties and encouragement he was given in his own baseball career. After learning the ins and the outs of the game as a catcher and outfielder for Louisiana State University, Heath began his coaching career as a hitting coach at Tallahassee Community College, the College of Charleston and Auburn University before returning to the College as the pitching coach under former head coach Monte Lee ’00.
His rare combination of experiences as both a hitting coach and a pitching coach prepared him for almost anything. But there was one thing he couldn’t possibly expect when he became the new head coach: “The number of phone calls has quadrupled!” Heath laughs. “That’s been the biggest change so far.”
But all those phone calls have hardly slowed him down.
“I’ve been recruiting for the early signing period,” he says. “I’ve been doing a whole lot of traveling. There was a period right when I started the job that I was gone for two straight weeks.”
Now back on campus, Heath is ready to take the field, and – while every team is different – he feels fortunate to start this season with the solid foundation he and Lee laid over the last five years.
In 2014, the team went to the NCAA Super Regional Tournament, where it came up just a few runs shy of making it to the College World Series. Then, in 2015, the team made it to the Tallahassee Regional Tournament, stopping just short of another invitation to the Super Regional. Both years the team earned national acclaim for its team production and the talent of its individual players.
One of those individual players is Bailey Ober, a pitcher whom the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association named 2014 Freshman Pitcher of the Year. Earlier in 2014, he was named the Colonial Athletic Association’s Rookie of the Year and the CAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.
In addition to Ober, Heath has helped groom another outstanding pitcher: Nathan Helvey, a junior sociology major whom Heath touts as a natural leader. Helvey brings equal concentration to both his athletic and academic careers, and it’s this kind of dedication that impresses Heath the most about his players.
“They’re very focused in the classroom and very well-rounded,” Heath says of those who emerge as team leaders. “They use their voices on the team, but they lead through their actions.”
As for Heath’s own leadership and coaching philosophy: He’s adopted many of the same qualities that he admired of Lee during the former coach’s tenure.
“Like Coach Lee, Heath’s coaching is built on values like focus, discipline, hard work, sacrifice, honesty and accountability,” Helvey says. “His main goal is to help us understand that the adversity and hardship we go through while playing the game will make us better men when all is said and done.”
And, when it’s all said and done, Heath feels confident that giving his players the freedom to explore their talents and dreams will result in a huge jump in their skill level and overall game. After all, if fleas can jump 100 times their height, there’s no telling how far the Cougars can go.
