World Series run brings joy to a closing college: ‘To us, they’ve already won’

“This team was cooked, they were done, they could not find their identity and they didn’t really believe in each other,” Rector said in a phone interview of the Panthers, who were 13-10 and in the midst of a tailspin when Birmingham-Southern’s board of trustees voted unanimously in March to close the liberal arts institution at the end of the school year because of financial instability. “They’ve gone 19-4 and won a super regional since. I can’t explain it. It was as if the weight of the world had been taken off their shoulders.”

Rector became the faculty athletic liaison to the baseball team a couple of years after he arrived at Birmingham-Southern in 2007. In the role, he introduces himself to the team’s freshmen and transfer players every fall and is a regular at practices and home games in the spring. He leads breathing exercises and offers muscle relaxation and visualization techniques to help the Panthers perform their best on the field, and he’s available to support players who fall behind in their academics.

On Tuesday, when Birmingham-Southern held its final practice at Striplin Field ahead of a send-off party at a local restaurant, longtime Panthers Coach Jan Weisberg invited Rector to speak to his players, just as he had ahead of their trip to super regionals and countless times before. As Rector considered his message to the team, he became concerned the proverbial weight on the Panthers’ shoulders had returned.

“Everyone’s pulling for them, they’re America’s team, and I was worried that suddenly they’re carrying too big a burden,” he said. “I told them, ‘I speak for all of us — faculty, staff, coaches, students, alums — and y’all don’t owe us anything. Last weekend was for us. You gave us a gift, and it was a gift. The last memories of Birmingham-Southern are going to be positive, after the last two months had been so sad and so negative.’ I told them, ‘You changed the narrative and the outcome of this story. Now, y’all just need to go and play for one more day.’”

The Birmingham-Southern baseball team’s magical ride, which has become a national story and attracted the attention of a documentary film crew, has brought a measure of much-needed joy to the city and the school’s grieving faculty, students and alumni during a difficult time.

“It’s one little bright light amid all this darkness,” Rector said.

While Rector grew up in Virginia and earned his undergraduate degree from U-Va. before making Birmingham his home, Rod Moss grew up a few blocks from BSC’s campus, where his mother worked in various administrative positions for the school. In 1968, Moss served as the batboy for the Panthers’ baseball team, hustling up the hill for games after his nearby elementary school let out.

Moss’s older sister attended Birmingham-Southern, and when it came time for him to choose a college, the familiarity of home — and the tuition discount his mother’s position afforded the family — was too much to pass up. He counted several members of the baseball team as fraternity brothers and graduated in 1976 with a degree in elementary education.

After teaching for four years in Birmingham City Schools, Moss transitioned to a career in hospital administration. His various jobs took him up and down the East Coast, but he kept tabs on his beloved alma mater from afar. Moss, who attended a bittersweet closing ceremony on campus last week, recently joined other alumni in changing his Facebook profile picture to an image of a baseball with the Birmingham-Southern logo and the tagline, “We’ll let you know when we’re ready to close.” He has fond memories of following his school’s runner-up finish in the 2019 College World Series and has been moved by the resolve of this year’s team.

“To do what they’ve done, especially with the announcement of the school closing, it’s just phenomenal,” Moss said in a phone interview, fighting back tears. “It shows the rest of the world what it means to be a [Birmingham-] Southern person. It’s a special place, and everybody’s just so proud of these guys.”

The support for the team has stretched well beyond Birmingham.

At last weekend’s super regionals in Granville, Ohio, Birmingham-Southern athletic director Kyndall Waters, a former volleyball player at the school, was inundated with questions about how people could support the program in its final days. After talking to the parents of some of the Panthers’ players, Waters’s sister, Kristin Sullivan, organized a GoFundMe campaign on behalf of the Hulse Patio Social Club. The informal group of supporters, which was founded in 2008 by the father of Birmingham-Southern assistant coach and former player J.D. Hulse, was a staple at BSC home games, where parents would grill out on a patio beyond the first base dugout to feed fans, the Panthers and even the opposing team.

As of Thursday afternoon, the GoFundMe campaign had raised more than $106,000, which will be used to cover travel expenses and rings to commemorate the school’s second trip to the College World Series. Any remaining funds will be donated to the coaching staff.

“It’s hard to imagine Birmingham without Birmingham-Southern College,” Sullivan said. “It’s been a gut punch, and it’s going to feel really weird after next week, but this has brought so much joy during a really hard time. It’s been beautiful to watch the community, and really the country, rally behind the team.”

In retirement, Moss works part-time as an usher at home games for the Rocket City Trash Pandas, the Class AA affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. He has mentioned Birmingham-Southern’s story to his colleagues at the ballpark over the past few weeks, and their response has generally been the same.

“They say to me, ‘Well, the school’s not going to exist, so who are they playing for?’” Moss said. “And I tell them, ‘They’re representing a school that doesn’t exist anymore, that’s true, but I guess in their hearts and minds, it still does.’ You’d have to go to Birmingham-Southern to understand that.”

Rector and Sullivan are both traveling to the College World Series in Eastlake, Ohio, where the Panthers will open their portion of the double-elimination tournament Friday at 4:45 p.m. Eastern against Salve Regina. With any luck, Birmingham-Southern will avoid another norovirus outbreak like the one that left roughly half the team hooked up to IVs behind the dugout and sent two players to the hospital ahead of the second game of its super regional sweep.

Rector, who was issued a credential that will grant him access to the dugout, will be on call in the event Weisberg decides the team could benefit from his expertise. Otherwise, he plans to soak in the experience as a fan.

“It’s icing on the cake at this point,” he said. “I don’t say that to the guys, because they’re competitors and they want to win. But to us, they’ve already won.”

Many of Rector’s best memories from his 17 years at Birmingham-Southern involve the baseball team, including the way Weisberg and the program embraced his autistic son, Ross. The player who caught Ross’s ceremonial first pitch before a game in 2014 still keeps in touch. After giving it some thought, Rector returned to the question about how the team managed to turn its season around in the face of unusual adversity.

“At the core, it all starts with Jan,” he said. “His ability to navigate these waters has just been inspiring. The players buy in because they know he has their best interest at heart, and that’s the biggest factor in how they’ve been able to hold it together.”