Trevor DeLaite is looking forward to starting a new chapter in his baseball career: head coach.
The former Bangor High School, University of Maine and Liberty University (Va.) pitcher will be coaching the first-year Bangor Babes in the Greater Northeast Collegiate Baseball League this summer.
“I always wanted to get into coaching. I’ve always loved the game itself and I like making people better. I also like the pitcher development piece,” said DeLaite, who recently turned 27 and moved back to Maine last summer from Virginia with his wife Morgan and their 1 1/2-year-old daughter.
DeLaite had been the director of pitcher development at Liberty University in 2023 after serving as an assistant coach at the school in 2022.
He had pitched for Liberty in 2021 after transferring from UMaine and went 12-1 with a 2.17 earned-run average, leading the Flames to an NCAA Regional berth in Knoxville, Tenn. He won his only start in the regional, 11-6, over Duke University.
He was chosen a third team All-American and was the first Liberty pitcher to ever be named one of six finalists for the National Pitcher of the Year.
DeLaite loved coaching at Liberty but said he was gone a lot and he and Hermon native Morgan had just welcomed their first child.
“We were in the thick of being new parents so we decided to come back home,” DeLaite said. “It’s nice to be home. Being close to family is always great.”
He landed a job with the Cross Insurance Company and also has his own DeLaite Baseball Development business in which he works with pitchers and helps them with their mechanics and their approach to pitching.
His business is located in the Hillside Athletics facility in Bangor.
DeLaite is a former Maine State Gatorade Player of the Year and winner of the 2016 Dr. John Winkin Award which goes to the state’s top senior high school player.
His senior year at Bangor High, the lefty was 9-1 with an 0.30 ERA and 100 strikeouts in 66 innings, leading the Rams to their third of five straight state Class A titles.
He went on to the University of Maine but injuries and control issues plagued him in his first two seasons before he became the closer in 2019 and registered seven saves to go with a 2.12 ERA. After throwing just four innings in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, he transferred to Liberty.
He feels it is important for him to be involved in coaching a sport that has taught him so much.
“I feel like I’ve experienced too much in the game to not pass it along and share it with players,” DeLaite said. “Between failure and success, it has been a career that has revolved around learning and adapting.
“I’ve been at the bottom of college baseball and almost at the top of it. It’s been good (for me),” said DeLaite. “I hope to pass along all of the things I experienced as a player: the good and the bad, the failure and success. You have to fail before you succeed.”
Going from working solely with pitchers to being involved with the entire team will be a continuation of his baseball education.
“I’m definitely looking forward to looking at the game as a whole,” said DeLaite, who moved to Bangor from Lincoln when he was in eighth grade. “Sometimes, as a pitcher, you narrow things down to just what’s happening on the mound.”
DeLaite credits former Liberty University associate head coach/pitching coach Matt Williams with being a major influence in his career.
Williams is now in his first season as the pitching coach at the University of South Carolina.
“I learned a lot from him as a player and being under him as an assistant coach (and director of pitching development),” said DeLaite. “That was great for me in a lot of different ways.”
DeLaite is pleased that Bangor has a first-year team in the Greater Northeast Collegiate Baseball League. The seven-year-old league will have five teams with the others being the Old Orchard Beach Bugs, the Augusta Surgin’ Sturgeon, the Sebago Slammin’ Salmon and the Gorham Lightning.
This is the first year there will be teams assigned to a specific city and area rather than dividing players up out of a player pool, assigning them to a team and playing games at several venues across the state.
They will play 24 regular season games followed by a play-in game and a four-team double elimination tournament.
Bangor will travel to The Ballpark in Old Orchard Beach for a season-opening 2 p.m. doubleheader on Sunday.
“Summer baseball for college kids is wonderful,” said DeLaite. “It can be a huge blessing for them. It was for me in terms of getting out there and playing in a (positive) environment.”
He said he thoroughly enjoyed playing summer baseball in various locales including Bellingham, Washington and Cape Cod and he hopes the league can thrive and give college players a quality experience.
He hopes the community embraces the team.
“We don’t have the Senior League World Series any more. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some kids to our games and they’ll have a chance to watch some good baseball and will look up to the players and want to be in their shoes someday,” said DeLaite, who will be assisted by Derek Fournier and Tyler Parke. “We have some really good athletes and baseball players in the state.”
He said they want to make it an enjoyable experience for the players, especially since it is summer baseball.
“We will read the game and do whatever the game calls for. I want them to play free, play loose and just compete,” said DeLaite. “We want to develop a good product that will lead to players wanting to come and play for us (in the future).”
