Bruins grateful baseball program received new life

Bob Jones plays its home games at Conestee Park on the former home field
 for the Greenville Braves minor league team. (Palmetto State Baseball photo) 

Last September, Kyle Morrison was busy working toward the fifth season of Bob Jones University’s baseball program. There was optimism. The Bruins was coming off a 13-win season – the most in the first four years - and the coaches had assembled a recruiting class they believed would bode well for 2025

"We were just going about our day,” Morrison recalled. “We’d brought a whole recruiting class in - a real good recruiting class, too. A lot of them were transfers, so a lot of age.

Then, the unthinkable happened at the fundamentalist Christian school.

“I got a call from (previous coach Brent Casteel) and he said ‘The program’s done,’” Morrison said. “He came to my house and told me that. I’m holding my four-day-old daughter and I’m like ‘seriously, what do I do now? I don’t have a job.’”

Kyle Morrison (BJU photo)

The school announced the program was being cut because of anticipated revenue issues.

“It was pretty upsetting,” said infielder Conley Burk, has played on all five teams. “I was on the team that started it all. It was really disappointing. I just didn't want to see it end. I thought we had some good stuff happening, and it was - just honestly - frustrating a little bit.”

“Emotion-wise, there were a lot of tears; a lot of frustration; A lot of anger – which wasn’t right,” Morrison said. “Spiritually wise, for me, it was a matter of I had to just be content with the situation that I had - and I wasn't content.”

The school offered Morrison employment in another department, but not want he wanted to do. “I was here to coach baseball,” he said.

But all was not lost.

“Two days later I was sitting at my desk, it’s like 10:30 at night and I’m looking for jobs,” Morrison said. “I get a call saying the program’s back on.

“It was like ‘yeah, there it is. We’re back!’ The only problem was (we’d lost) 10 or 11 guys who would have contributed, (including) a big part of our pitching staff. We lost a lot of arms,” he said.

Morrison had been helping players find landing spots so they could continue their careers. Now, he had to try to sell them on staying … or find replacements if he couldn’t do that.

“We’d just helped these guys; they’d just all transferred because we were told we weren’t moving forward,” Morrison said. “There was that bittersweet moment where ‘our pitching’s gone.’ Now, we're kind of scrambling.”

After Casteel left, an athletic administrator asked Morrison about his interest in being head coach. “I said we’ve got like three guys on the team, three commitments to stay and figure this out,” Morrison said. “He said. It doesn't matter, just have a team and get it going, and I was, like, ‘OK, we'll do it.’”

Burk, for one, was ecstatic at the reversal of fortune. “I think I might have run out of my house and run down the street,” he said. “I was excited. It was pretty awesome. That was some of the best news I've had recently.”

“(At that time) there's still no guarantee for next year,” Morrison said. “Fast forward to about a week later. Now, our roster is up to about 18, and we're able to bring a kid back from Florida. So now, we're at 19.

“It went like that pretty much all fall,” Morrison said. “Preparing for a 40 game-schedule in the fall with 19 players is pretty tough, you know? Our fall World Series was three games of about seven Innings. I think one game was a five-inning game.

“We had to do what we had to do, but we worked hard. We got after it, and that didn't stop us from recruiting. We tried to get as many guys as we could to transfer in, and by God's grace, we got 11 guys,” Morrison said. “We worked hard trying to get those guys. That’s not normal to bring in 11 transfers from the fall semester to the spring semester, so we were very thankful for that. Those guys took a shot on us.

“Then we got word in January that our program was going to continue,” Morrison said.

Unlike many schools, Bob Jones is a relatively recent participant in intercollegiate athletics with no long roster of former athletes.

For decades, its actions of not being involved in a lot of secular things led to a self-described moniker as the World’s Most Unusual University - as a source of pride for those within its community, but head-scratching bemusement for those without.

Bob Jones announced plans to field a baseball program in May, 2018, then worked toward playing its first competitive games in 2021.

The events after the initial decision to drop baseball have helped Morrison’s perspective.

“It taught me to appreciate the little things,” Morrison said; “My daughter was healthy. My wife was healthy. I was healthy. I had a job again. It's easy to sit back and say, ‘well, if we didn't lose (players to transfers) we’d better,’ but we can't go there. This is the group The Lord's provided, and we're grateful, and I'll take these 31 guys any day of the week, because they took a shot on us.”

Conley Burk (BJU photo)

Burk, who is batting .426 this season, has raised his batting average over the previous year every season. He came to Bob Jones to play soccer, but said he wanted to go somewhere where he could play multiple sports.

“It’s a Christian education and good education overall,” Burk said. “I had offers to other places, but I was like this just seems the most fitting with being able to play multiple sports.

The program had a 35-110 record for its first four seasons, and is 4-14 so far this year. Burk said he tries not to let the team’s struggles impact his effort.

“I just try to do the best I can every at-bat,” said Burk, a career .323 hitter. “If other people are struggling you’ve just got to pass the torch to the next man up, I try to never let what's going on around me impact my at-bats. I just try to be mentally tough, as mentally tough as I can be.”

Burk said something he and his teammates want to do is provide a foundation for the program to grow.

“A lot of the upperclassmen, we've been having a lot of meetings putting together some things  we can just put down on paper about what it means to play at Bob Jones,” he said. “We’re trying to write a culture and establish this program so that the younger guys can carry that on next year when we're not here.

“We’re going to lose a good amount of guys, and most of them are pretty outspoken leaders,” Burk said “So, we're trying to just have it so solidified by the end of the year that the guys can continue to do it in the future.”

Morrison said getting a second chance to develop the program he spent years working with is rewarding.

“I am extremely grateful, and I don't take a single day for granted,” Morrison said. “Bob Jones is obviously in a tough situation this past year with all the cuts and layoffs that we had. But, there are a lot of things going on. There are changes coming.  It's just taught me to just say, ‘Lord, just tell me how to when to jump and tell me how high.’

“It’s really made me zero in on just doing my job, and I'll tell you, it has lit a fire on me recruiting. I'm trying to bring in 27 players for next year. We're gonna have 40 guys. And, Lord willing, we’ll be there by April 1st for next year's class.

“Obviously, we don't know what's going to happen in the portal in the summer, but if guys choose to stay and buy in, they should be buying in and this is a great program. It's a great school. It's a great opportunity and. Um, Lord willing, we're gonna get this thing, right? So, we're excited for it.”