Jeske joins Griz softball program

It was a shame it ever had to end.

It was that kind of a season for the Missoula PaddleHeads last summer playing in the Pioneer Baseball League, the 37-11 first half, the 62-34 regular season, both records the best in the league, PBL highs in batting average and runs scored.

"We had a great group of guys who bought into the idea of playing for each other and playing to win a championship and bring it back to Missoula," says Tyler Jeske, the team's hitting coach who helped the PaddleHeads bat .328 and average nearly 10 runs per game, not once getting shut out.

"It was humbling to watch every day how they went about their business and how they carried themselves. It was a blast."

Until it came to an end last month in the opening round of the Pioneer Baseball League playoffs, the reality setting in that coaching in an independent league is seasonal work, Jeske's future likely back home in Ohio, maybe substitute teaching over the winter until the next adventure could begin.

He's already experienced a lifetime of them, getting a video internship with the then Cleveland Indians' AA team, the Akron Aeros, while still in college, then cold-emailing all the baseball programs in the Southeastern Conference before graduation, letting them know he had the skillset they needed.

Mississippi State head coach John Cohen agreed, bringing Jeske on in 2014 as the program's coordinator of baseball video operations. "I knew video and data tech were going to keep getting more and more important. They were the only ones who liked the idea," Jeske says.

It was his way to stay in the game, the one that won him over growing up in Cleveland, where he had daily access to an indoor hitting and training facility, perfect for long hours with the boys, making up games on the fly, learning the details of the sport without even knowing it.

But his own playing career would bump up against a ceiling. "I knew at 5-foot-8 as a left-left first baseman who couldn't really run or throw and didn't hit for enough power, the writing was on the wall," says Jeske, who graduated from Akron in 2013 with a degree in communication and media studies.

He had that internship with the Aeros, and then the year at Mississippi State before the Indians hired him again and sent him to the Dominican Republic to be on its video operations staff, Rosetta Stone and full immersion in a new country setting him up to be both bilingual and all of a sudden in demand.

The Texas Rangers brought him on as part of its international operations, which led to three years at Missouri State, first as video coordinator, then as director of baseball operations. "One thing kept leading to another. It's been a long and winding road," he says.

In 2019, he broke into coaching with the Los Angeles Angels, working with the hitters for its team in Mesa in the Arizona League, later with its team in Tempe in the Arizona Complex League.

Three years with one organization? Time for something new, this time as an assistant at Lackawanna College in Pennsylvania in 2022, the summer spent as head coach for the Medicine Hat Mavericks, a team of collegiate players in the Canadian Western Major Baseball League.

It 2023 he was hired by the Oakland Athletics to be the hitting coach for their team in the Arizona Complex League. Finally, the PaddleHeads, the latest line of a plump resume for a coach still young enough to be able to apply all that knowledge and experience – to gift it to others – for years to come.

"I approached it all with a 'how can I help?' mentality. I was thinking it might lead to coaching high school baseball. Now, 14 years later, here we are," he says.

Where he was in mid-September was the PaddleHeads coaches' office, sitting with manager Michael Schlact, watching MLB Network on a day off in their opening-round playoff series against the Glacier Ridge Riders, when an unusual email arrived.

New Montana softball coach Stef Ewing was wondering if the PaddleHeads had any leads on a hitting coach, someone to complete her first-year staff. "I thought I'd hear her out, find out what this is all about," says Jeske.

Their meeting at Clyde Coffee set everything into motion. "Her energy and authenticity really stood out," says Jeske of Ewing. "You can tell she wants to create a player-first type of program that prioritizes players enjoying their experience. At the PaddleHeads, that was the foundation of everything we did."

When the PaddleHeads' season came to an end on Sept. 13, Jeske was at Montana's indoor hitting facility the very next day, ready to get to work, ready to begin his next adventure, thrilled to be staying put in Missoula.

"I feel like I've won the coaching lottery coming off the season we had with the PaddleHeads, now stepping into the Griz softball program," Jeske says. "Just high-quality people to be around day in and day out."

Jeske has office space on campus, across the hall from Ewing, but good luck finding him there. He's at home at the field, any field, his office wherever a player wants to get better at putting bat to ball.

"To be able to have someone with his experience is going to be amazing for our program," Ewing said. "It's not just X's and O's. He goes into the mental side of hitting and all the things you have to deal with as a hitter that are happening between the ears.

"He looks at things differently and I love that. I'm learning from him as well. I can understand what he's saying but it's at a whole other level of detail. The kids love him. He's not interested in making everybody a robot. He wants to understand you as a person so he can make you a better hitter."

Ewing took over a program that finished last in hitting in the Big Sky Conference the last two seasons, the Grizzlies batting .262 in the spring, .244 the year before.

She had a simple directive when Jeske was hired. "I told him, we need to barrel the ball more and we need to be on time more. He said, okay, I can do that. Now I can't get him at the office. He's at the field 24/7."

The whole story leads to a pretty important question that's gone unanswered, right? How is a guy who has spent his life around baseball adapting to a sport that is both very similar and quite different?

"The baseball swing and the softball swing play," says Ewing. "A hitter is a hitter. The only difference is the release point of the pitcher. He's jumped two feet in. He's putting the players through stuff they're doing at the professional level. I've seen the difference already in what they're able to do."

It's been a learning curve for Jeske as well but the foundation of the swing is the same. "Ultimately it comes down to helping hitters, whether it's baseball or softball, becoming the best version of themselves and understanding that perfection doesn't exist."

Is Jeske's approach connecting where it matters most, with the players? Let's check in with Presley Jantzi, who flirted with a .400 batting average last season before finishing at .393, the third-highest average in the Big Sky.

"My experiences with Tyler have been nothing but amazing. He has a brain that is in constant overdrive," she says. "He has a passion for hitting so deep that he quite literally dreams about what we are going to work on each day.

"He has changed my view on hitting to look at it in the simplest way possible. I've never met someone who has that much knowledge but barely speaks. He will most definitely help Griz Softball be successful this year on the offensive side."

It's not a first-of-its-kind type of hire, Ewing notes, pointing out that Steve Singleton, the hitting coach at Texas, was coaching minor league baseball in Florida before making the jump to college softball. He was named in July the Assistant Coach of the Year by D1Softball.

There have been others as well, drawn to relational over transactional.

"For so many college softball players, these four years are professional sports for them. This is their last four years. They are not going to become professional softball players. They are going to go on and become professional people," says Ewing.

"Tyler really enjoyed that part of our conversation, that it's not just about the results on the field. We're about developing people and using softball as our platform for it. He talked about how transactional professional baseball can be, so he was all into that."

Jeske's hitters, this new-and-improved version of them, will make their public debut on Sunday when Montana hosts Carroll at 11 a.m., Providence at 3 p.m. at Grizzly Softball Field.

"I've never had so much fun at practice," he says, "being able to sit back and watch and listen, the energy and the way the girls interact and support each other. It's exciting and humbling to watch, all bottled into one.

"Every one of these players has been working so hard. I'm excited to watch them play on Sunday. The difference watching them from Day 1 to today, it's mind-blowing how far some of them have come as you see that confidence start to build, playing with that swag and fearlessness."

It's a new team, a new sport for Jeske, but the basics remain the same. "Do right by the player in everything you do and show them you care. Other than that, get out of their way and let them live their dream."

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Presley Jantzi

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