From the Desk of the AD: Team

What an amazing run by our baseball team this spring, earning their way into baseball's version of the Sweet Sixteen with a berth in the NCAA Super Regionals.

Their success was no coincidence: a winning recipe has many ingredients including recruiting, facilities, health, coaching, culture, experience, community and leadership.

Yet this team will always be remembered for a word that seldom ventures into the vocabulary when talking about team chemistry or success: love. This team genuinely loves each other! Watch this video of them learning they were selected as the #3 seed in the Oxford, Mississippi regional and see love manifested:

There are many great players but not many great teams. Teams will always beat individuals and the 2015-16 BC baseball team will be remembered by their love for one-another as a team.

At the epicenter of love for this team is Director of Baseball Operations Pete Frates.

While riding on the team bus after one of the tournament games, I noticed the players were passing around a phone and talking to someone. When the phone came to where I was sitting, one of the players - without hesitation - handed the phone to me and told me to say hi to Pete. And there he was on the other end of Facetime with his proud grin – the man whose global influence is of such magnitude that he inspired the Chancellor of Germany to dump a bucket of ice water on her head – connecting with his team: the guys who he taught the meaning of love.

I was talking to a colleague recently and he was telling the story of a video he watched of a team's reaction to a teammate being drafted in the first round. The video was memorable to him because of the unemotional response of the draftee's teammates. My colleague said, "How can you be a team if there is no connection with your teammates?"

And therein rests the essence of BC Baseball.

See the sincerity of this team's excitement for Justin Dunn when – at a team dinner in a Miami restaurant the night before the Super Regional – he is selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft. Tell me this team doesn't love one-another!

And like our field hockey (Elite Eight), women's soccer (NCAA Tournament), men's soccer (Elite Eight), women's hockey (National Championship Game), men's hockey (Frozen Four) and lacrosse (NCAA Tournament) teams also did this year, BC baseball taught us the power of a team's love with a vision of excellence.

- Brad Bates
Director of Athletics

Boston College Athletics

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