N.C. State baseball coach Elliott Avent’s season won’t end — and he’s good with that
No one would blame Elliott Avent if he decided to spend his summer on a beach somewhere, away from the game, relaxing and unwinding after a whirlwind spring.
The N.C. State baseball coach has earned the right to unplug after so many deflating events in 2021.
First, he lost his father, perhaps the biggest baseball fan he knew, who never missed a chance to watch the Wolfpack. Then COVID-19, not Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, or any other teams in Omaha, sent N.C. State home early from the College World Series. It was the Pack’s first trip there since 2013 and many felt like 2021 was the year N.C. State would win it all.
But the virus spread throughout the Wolfpack lineup and the NCAA decided N.C. State was done with baseball. Something out of Avent’s control, something that snatched away his season like that, would be enough to send any man into seclusion for a few months. But Avent made a commitment, and that’s why he’s spent what was supposed to be his free time around the game he loves the most.
For the past few weeks, Avent has led the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team. The squad will start a three-game exhibition series against Team USA July 18-20, right here in the Triangle. The games will be split between the USA Baseball National Training Complex (July 18 and 20) and the Durham Bulls Athletic Park (July 19).
This isn’t Avent’s first time working with the national team. He was an assistant in 2004 and 2015, and even with so many reasons to take a break this off season, the ballpark is where Avent wanted to be more than anywhere else in the world. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
“After my dad passed away it was our players at N.C. State that kept me together,” Avent said. “After this season ended and I joined the USA team, it was these players the last two weeks or so that have helped me with the way the season ended, so it’s been a lot of fun.”
Commitment to USA Baseball
The end of the Pack’s college baseball season has been well documented. N.C. State needed one win to advance to the final round of the CWS. In the wee hours of the night, the NCAA pulled the plug, sending the team back to Raleigh after several players tested positive for COVID-19.
After a loss to Vanderbilt, Avent wouldn’t say if he encouraged the players to get vaccinated.
“The parents drop their young men off and leave in my care,” Avent told the media in a Zoom call last month. “They’ve raised them to be the quality people that we recruit. My job is to teach them baseball, make sure they get an education and keep them on the right track going forward. But I don’t try to indoctrinate the kids with my values or my opinions. Obviously we talk about a lot of things. But these are young men who can make their own decisions, and that’s what they did.”
As the leader of the program, there were some who questioned if Avent should have encouraged his players to get vaccinated, and maybe their season would have ended with a CWS trophy.
With the stresses of an unusual season — and one that went on longer than usual because of the postseason run — it would have been natural to want a break.
Not Avent. Even if he wanted to, he made a commitment to USA Baseball, so there was no going back on that.
“If you commit to something in life you need to do it,” Avent said. “I committed to this wonderful organization, happy to do so and was honored that I was asked. Once you make the commitment, it doesn’t matter what happens, you stick to the commitment. As tough as the season was when it ended it was these last few weeks with all these personalities, players and great coaches that have sustained me through a tough time.”
Avent gets the opportunity to coach two of his own players (pitchers Sam Highfill and Chris Villaman) and reunite with some coaching buddies who will serve as his assistants, like Troy Tulowitzki (Texas), Jerry Weinstein (Colorado Rockies, who Avent called “a legend in our business”), Kevin O’Sullivan (Florida) and Dan Hartleb (Illinois).
Bringing college players from all over the country and making them a team in a short period of time has its challenges, but Avent says this group made it easy from day one.
“They understood their commitment, they understood who they were representing,” Avent said. “They understood what they wanted to get out of this summer and like I said, the coaching staff is just tremendous.”
The team has played 11 scrimmages (Stars versus Stripes) since July 2, making various stops across Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia and North Carolina.
Therapeutic
Avent didn’t realize it at the time he made the commitment to USA Baseball, but the past month with the national team has become therapeutic for him.
He’s spent most of his adult life at the park, with his dad watching from the stands or at home during his coaching stint at N.C. State.
His dad was with him physically the first time he took the Pack to Omaha in 2013, and Avent told the media ahead of the CWS he knew his dad was watching from above this time around.
Avent jumped right into the season after his dad passed and that four month grind kept him plenty busy. Most people would take this time to properly mourn or take time to themselves. But Avent realizes he just might need this time around the national team to help him heal.
“As soon as I walked on that field and reunited with the coaches and as soon as that happened,” Avent said, “you instantly figured out why you do this. As tough as the ending was in Omaha, you realize what the game gives you is far greater than anything that may happen that causes you a little bit of sorrow.”
COLLEGIATE NATIONAL TEAM vs. TEAM USA
Sunday, July 18, 2021 – 6:30 p.m. EDT
Collegiate National Team vs. Team USA
USA Baseball National Training Complex (Cary, N.C.)
Monday, July 19, 2021 – 6:35 p.m. EDT
Team USA vs. Collegiate National Team
Durham Bulls Athletic Park (Durham, N.C.)
Tuesday, July 20, 2021 – 1 p.m. EDT
Collegiate National Team vs. Team USA
USA Baseball National Training Complex (Cary, N.C.)
