For players and alumni awaiting the return of La Salle baseball, the anticipation is the hardest part

La Salle head coach David Miller will be pretty upset when the first pitches of the 2025 college baseball season are thrown across America.

Miller is returning to La Salle baseball after serving as its head coach for four seasons before the program was cut alongside five other varsity sports after the 2020-21 school year. But with the program scheduled to return in 2026, he was entrusted by Explorers athletic director Ashwin Puri, who was hired in July 2023, to do the recruiting, training, and fundraising necessary to return the Explorers to the diamond.

» READ MORE: David Miller aspires to turn reborn La Salle baseball into a ‘destination program’

Those things take time, which means La Salle will not play regular-season games until spring 2026. For guidance on how the program should operate between this spring and next, the university has formed a 10-member advisory board, made up mainly of baseball alumni.

It’s an anxious wait for the crack of the bat, but advisory board members Bill Watts and Brian Schaller see the dormant time as an opportunity to engage alumni and take the steps necessary to not only bring the program back to life but to build the “destination program” that Miller envisions.

Hank DeVincent Field squeezes in alongside McCarthy Stadium on La Salle’s land between 20th Street and Central High School. The sharp red brick corners of Central can be seen beyond the chain-link fence that encloses right-center, with a parking lot and undeveloped green space separating the two.

The field is 310 feet to the foul poles and 365 to the gaps. It takes a nearly square shape, as it also was the venue for La Salle’s field hockey team through the 2022 season.

The turf, still marked out with field hockey lines, was installed in 2019. It is in near-pristine condition. Dugout sidings, bleachers, and the backstop chain-link fencing serve as clear reminders that the field has gone unused for 2½ years.

An important part of La Salle’s return to the diamond hinges on enhancements and subsequent construction of its team facilities. In order to be compliant with NCAA rules that took effect in 2023, the outfield walls need a layer of padding, and netting needs to be installed along the baselines.

Along with rule-mandated needs, the program also has wants. Its wish list includes an indoor batting cage and fielding facility, a new scoreboard, dugout renovations, and a new rounded center-field wall.

La Salle can handle the operational costs of fielding a team, which include travel, equipment, and umpires. For the rest, the program’s advisory board is fundraising. The board is in Phase 1 of its three-phase process. Phase 1 is centered on “fundraising and awareness campaigns that will enhance the facilities,” as Watts, a senior vice president at General Mills’ North American division, explained.

» READ MORE: Pete Rose was at home playing baseball in Philly. His grandson hopes to do the same.

Watts played right field for the Explorers from 1989 to 1994. Puri and outfield teammate Brian Schaller recruited him to serve on the advisory board. Schaller, who is the president of Wawa, was a freshman when Watts was a fifth-year senior.

“I was calling anyone and everyone who was important in my time at La Salle,” Schaller said. “Billy was at the top of the list.”

Watts has experience on similar boards, including as treasurer of the board of governors at Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia as well as internally at General Mills. Watts says he takes a “business approach” to his support of La Salle baseball.

“This is a rebuild,” Watts said. “We have to approach it with that same level of discipline and professionalism that we would if we were running a business.”

The group’s fundraising goal for Phase 1 is “about $600,000,” according to Schaller. Watts added that the group has 38% of its Phase 1 fundraising goal in the bank as cash.

“This is largely grassroots,” Schaller said. “There’s largely no corporate money in there. This is individuals. By the spring, to get to that Phase 1 goal, that tells me we’re there. It’s going to be some work, but it’s going to be fun work. I think it can be done.”

Phase 2 involves significant upgrades to Wister Hall, which La Salle intends to convert into an athletic space, while Phase 3 is concerned with the fan experience.

The first evidence of the fundraising comes in the form of 3D renderings of a new scoreboard for DeVincent Field. Watts views the scoreboard, which is funded and will be installed in the summer, as a way for the board to showcase the intentionality behind its plan.

“We’re going to be able to show that, when we get to X, we’re putting the scoreboard up,” Watts said. “When we get to Y, the nets are going up. When we get to Z, the facilities are going to be enhanced.”

The fundraising that the advisory board is doing is rooted in its primary mission to, as Watts describes, “cultivate a culture that delivers a competitive baseball team that also develops the full student-athlete.”

Miller, who was named the Atlantic 10’s coach of the year after leading the Explorers to a program-record 32 wins in 2021, is working to construct a roster that can compete in the A-10.

His incoming class, which includes 33 freshmen, is ranked as the 34th-best class in the nation by Perfect Game USA. The Explorers are sandwiched between power conference programs North Carolina and West Virginia, though it is worth noting that the number of incoming players heavily influences Perfect Game’s rankings.

“[It is] 20 more [freshmen] than I’ve ever brought in,” Miller said. “But we have to build a team.”

Miller’s pitch to recruits revolved around an opportunity to come into the program and see the field immediately. In the current environment of college athletics, playing time and exposure are important parts of a formula for name, image, and likeness resources — and big league opportunities.

“I ask for a two-year commitment,” Miller said. “What I hope happens is, these kids, they come to La Salle, they give me two years … after their sophomore year when we have that conversation about, ‘Is it worth you leaving to go to the SEC or the ACC,’ they tell me, ‘No, this is where I want to be.’”

La Salle has a handful of players already on campus who will be on next season’s team, including Pete Rose’s grandson, P.J. Rose. Those players are focusing on strength and conditioning and will serve as de facto team leaders when the full roster arrives on campus this fall.

Miller knows that a lineup card consisting of eight or nine freshmen is going to need patience, but his experience with La Salle gives him confidence that his team will be able to find success.

“If this was my first year as a Division I head coach, [it] probably wouldn’t work,” Miller said. “You need somebody that has the ability to be patient to restart a program.”

In late September, before the formation of the advisory board, La Salle hosted a game for its baseball alumni. It had been an annual tradition before the program was cut and made its return after five years. Among the 130 participants was men’s basketball head coach Fran Dunphy, who played on the diamond for a year during his time with the Explorers.

“Guys had driven up to five, six hours to come to that, from all different class years,” Schaller said. “That tells me the desire is there. That tells me that this place really is real, and what I feel is shared by many.”

Much of the alumni support for baseball — and La Salle athletics in general — is rooted in a love for La Salle and a desire for it to rally past a downward trend in enrollment that began in 2019.

“When I went, [St. Joseph’s] and La Salle were roughly fighting for the same student,” Schaller said. “I’ll admit, that equation might have gotten out of whack. We can bring it back.”

For many, including La Salle president Daniel Allen, athletics are the “front porch” of the university. A newfound investment into La Salle’s programs, like baseball, serves as a road to creating a positive student experience, which in turn restores La Salle’s brand.

“When I go to Rally House, I see a wall of West Chester Rams [merchandise],” Schaller said. “I have to search that store for a hanger of La Salle products. That’s brand. … We have to build that back up.”

Miller, who played at Clemson from 1993 to 1995 and was an assistant coach at Villanova in 2010 and 2011, has seen the effect athletic success had on the brands of those schools.

» READ MORE: A look inside La Salle's multi-million dollar improvements to John Glaser Arena

“I just look at how the universities have grown since they’ve won their national championships,” Miller said. “People made jokes about how easy it used to be to get into Clemson back in the day. Now it’s like, you’ve got to have a 3.9 [GPA] and a 1,400 SAT to get into that school. And they took a dude like me.”

While achieving national championship levels of success is a bit premature for the Explorers to envision, there is hope that a deep, grassroots investment in university athletics will boost the school’s profile.

“La Salle is always going to be, to me, the little engine that could,” Schaller said. “I think to do that, it relies heavily on its alumni network. That’s the beauty of it.”

» READ MORE: La Salle baseball is coming back. Here’s what some former Explorers think about it.