The 2010 Pioneer baseball’s First Pitch Banquet was a home run on Saturday, when around 200 attended to help the team’s most important fundraising event of the year to fund the team’s spring break trip.

Photograph by Stephanie Coren


The eighth annual First Pitch Banquet was held Feb. 6 to help raise funds for the team’s spring break tournament. The money raised this year will help the team travel to North Carolina.

Similar to other collegiate sports teams, the Pioneer baseball team packs up and heads south to warmer weather during Spring Break. Instead of working on their tans the Pioneers kick off their 40-game season by spending their entire week playing teams that are already 15-20 games into their seasons.

“It’s a challenge as the team adapts to playing outside again after practicing indoors all winter,” said Jason Watson, assistant coach and First Pitch Banquet event coordinator.

Former trips include Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Missouri. This season they will visit North Carolina.

“It’s real exciting for the guys to take a trip south to get out of the snow and into warmer weather to play on grass,” head coach Eric Frese said. “It’s worth the time and effort it takes to put the banquet on. If we didn’t have the banquet, they would have to find other ways to raise money for the spring trip, and the players would likely have to pay more to foot the bill.”

This year marks the eighth anniversary of the First Pitch Banquet fundraiser, attended by UW-Platteville’s alumni and administration, friends of the team and player families. The banquet included a social hour, dinner, season preview, live auction and guest speaker Ray Saint, author of the motivational book It’s Great to Be You!.

Ticket sales and auction proceeds from the event provide approximately 25 percent of the team’s income for the year.

This year was the fourth season that Watson and Frese have been involved in the banquet.

“The first year was the most difficult, coming into it new and not knowing how it was managed and planned previously,” Frese said. “It changes every year, but we generally see the same numbers year to year, and everyone does a nice job supporting the program.”

In addition to two grand prize cash drawings, the live auction prizes included portraits painted on canvas, a jersey and bat autographed by the 2010 Pioneer baseball team, games and sports memorabilia from UW-P and regional professional sports teams like the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Vikings.

The portrait canvases were purchased, and the other items were donated by the players.

Success is often measured in numbers. For the banquet, this might be counted in the dollars raised or the total prizes given away. Or it might be found in the solidarity of support from the UW-P baseball community as a whole, which Watson said “gets better and better every year.”