Under The Gun: Jeff Jefferson

Date: February 14, 2019
By: Eric Leary

We are very excited to have UNC-Pembroke assistant coach Jeff Jefferson with us for this edition of Under the Gun. Coach, you are in your 5th year with the Braves for the 2019 season and you also serve as the Recruiting Coordinator for UNCP. You played on some quality teams at Liberty University having graduated in 2011, and it looks like you began your coaching career soon after you finished playing. Can you tell us your story on the transition from playing to coaching and who has had meaningful influence for you on this journey?

Absolutely! As soon as I figured out in high school that I may have been good enough to go on and play at the next level, I was dead set on doing just that. This may sound bad to some, but I went to college to play baseball, not the other way around. I was very fortunate to go on after high school and play four years at Liberty under then Head Coach, Jim Toman. Coach Toman and all of the assistant coaches that I was able to play for at Liberty went above and beyond to help me obviously on the baseball field, but also off the field and become the first individual in my family graduate with a degree.

I will always be grateful for those opportunities that I was given there at Liberty and the guidance that Coach Toman had to offer me. Soon in to my playing career, I started looking around at my teammates and other teams we were playing and was figuring out that this baseball thing probably wasn’t going to last much longer for myself.  In playing for Coach Toman, I became extremely interested with the college baseball coaching side of things and how everything worked. In my junior year at Liberty, I knew then that coaching college baseball was what I wanted to do with my life and from that point on, Coach Toman was probably more than annoyed with all of the questions I had for him.  Since graduating from college from Liberty, I was fortunate enough to go on and receive a Master’s Degree from Concord University in Athens, WV and start my coaching career under then Head Coach Andrew Wright. I spent two seasons under Coach Wright and was lucky for him to believe in me enough to do the recruiting for his program.

Those two years started a foundation for me to build off of and definitely gave me plenty of experiences to draw from when thinking of ways to do things nowadays.  After those two years at Concord, I was able to move along and work a year at Shepherd University for Head Coach Matt McCarty. In that year at Shepherd I was able to build some of the closest friendships I have to this day and learned a lot about how the smallest of details matter in this business and in life. Since then I have moved along here to UNC Pembroke under Head Coach Paul O’Neil and have loved every minute of working here. Coach O’Neil took a huge risk on giving this opportunity to a young guy with little recruiting experience to draw from in this area and I have tried my best to not let him down on a daily basis since working here.

As recruiting coordinator at a DII program, can you explain how good this level of baseball is and why it may be a best fit for players looking to play past high school?

Division II baseball is an option a lot more kids need to pursue and have an open mind about.  Over the last couple of years, I seem to run in to more kids in the recruiting process that have the mindset of only playing at a handful of particular schools and most of the time the schools they are interested in are highly touted Division I programs. There’s nothing wrong with having big dreams, but the kids that feel like they are “settling” when deciding to go to a Division II school are setting themselves up for failure. Division II baseball, in the Southeast Region in particular, is far too strong for kids to be on the fence about.  I would advise high school coaches and potential student athletes to go out and watch Division II baseball and particularly DII schools that are making postseason play and see what they’re all about. If you have the slightest idea of what good baseball looks like, then I think you’ll walk away impressed.

The 2019 season is already underway. What are some of the goals that you had for the Braves this spring and what is your take thus far on reaching those expectations?

In 2019 our club has come up with some lofty goals that they would like to achieve, just like everyone else. The difference for our club is there is a big concentration on being the best we can be on a daily basis. Whether that’s a practice day or a game day it doesn’t matter if we are going to reach our full potential.  A big emphasis for our guys is also being the best version of themselves that they can be. There’s surely going to be some adversity throughout the year and if our guys can buy in to one another, then I think we will have a fighting chance to be a special team this year.

Take us through a typical day for UNCP baseball. What are some unique differences between a practice day schedule and game day schedule?

A typical day for UNC Pembroke baseball is more than likely very similar to a lot of other programs. The engine that keeps our program going is our coaching and support staff that we have. Alex Pearce, Collins Cuthrell and Anthony Burke round out our coaching staff here at UNC Pembroke. All three of those guys are former standout players of our program and have a lot of credibility with our team when it comes to player development. Michael Musselwhite is our team’s Athletic Trainer that is a behind the scenes asset that our program is very lucky to have access to on a daily basis.

This may not be such a unique difference to some people, but our staff does a tremendous job in my opinion of getting our work done for our guys during practice to prepare them and then just letting our guys go out and play as hard as possible on game day.

It’s easy to see that offensive numbers have been strong at UNCP in the last several years.  Can you share your best drill for players to help them achieve such positive production? Also how does this drill fit into your overall offensive philosophy?

I’m not sure we could name one drill in particular that has led to our success offensively rather than just a mindset.  Coach O’Neil has had a long history of having very offensive teams and adding the credibility that Collins Cuthrell brings to that has enhanced our offensive numbers in my opinion. Staples of our hitting philosophy here is where your head is at contact, how your hands work to get on plane and how balanced can you be throughout your swing. Those three things are very good indications of how good of a hitter you have a chance to be within your individualized skillset. Like a lot of programs, another aspect that has helped our program be very offensive is the weight room. Nowadays all of college baseball is bought into the weight room, but here for us I think we go above and beyond with how physical some of guys are. With our position players, I’d feel very confident that several of our guys would be able to hold their own with a college football team lifting regimen. If you don’t like to lift weights, then UNC Pembroke is probably not a good fit for you as a player.

One last question. What message would you like to share with youth baseball today to maybe give some perspective on what their focus should be at those early levels of development?

My biggest piece of advice I would give to kids in youth sports would be to do what you enjoy. Play multiple sports and play sports for the enjoyment of being able to share something with other people and have fun doing so. I played college baseball and now coach college baseball for a living, but one thing I wish I could go back and do again is play high school football. There are many memories to be made in the world of sports and I would say to not let one sport detour you from playing another.

A huge thanks to Coach Jefferson for taking a few minutes to catch us up on how he and the Braves are doing.  As always best of luck to UNCP Baseball as the spring continues to roll!