Feature image: Head Baseball Coach Logan Stout found a new home in Pine Bluff. Photography by Dewaine Duncan.
Nate Monceaux did not know the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff existed one year ago.
“I was actually at a NAIA program, [Loyola University] in New Orleans,” said Monceaux, a junior right-handed pitcher on the UAPB baseball team. “I had no clue about this place.”
That makes Monceaux, a “yes sir, no sir” kind of guy majoring in biochemistry prepharmacy, an ideal fit on the Golden Lions roster.
“I was like, ‘Where?’” said first year head coach Logan Stout, recounting the first phone call he received from Chris Robinson, UAPB’s vice chancellor for intercollegiate athletics.
There is not a story in all of college baseball quite like what is happening at UAPB, where a cast of newcomers have converged on the downtrodden program with plans to spark what almost surely would be the biggest turnaround in Division I. There is a feeling of experimentation mixed with confidence for the Golden Lions, and it starts with Stout, who is in a company of one when it comes to his background.
“I’ve been diversified my whole life,” Stout said in what could be the understatement of the year.
It could be said that Stout got sidetracked. Growing up in a hardscrabble section of Dallas, baseball was Stout’s obsession starting at a young age, and he parlayed that obsession into an all-American season at Division III University of Dallas. His postgraduate plans included pitching in the independent leagues and building a career in college baseball with a coaching job at Dallas Baptist University, where the baseball program competes in D-1.
“It was never in the cards for me to step away from college coaching,” Stout said.
Stout was learning something about himself though. He was equal parts charismatic and chatty, a Type-A people person and a natural leader. He started a business on the side to make ends meet and discovered he was a born entrepreneur. More businesses followed. He capitalized on the deregulation of oil and gas in the early 2000s and headed up a nutritional company called IDLife. He also started doing speaking engagements on the side until he looked up one day and was booked for more than 200 appearances a year. He authored two books, became a confidant of leadership author John C. Maxwell and even appeared on the television show Shark Tank.
And yet…
“All the stuff just kind of happened so fast,” Stout said. “I kind of woke up one day, and I was like, ‘Holy cow, it’s been two decades,’ and I love college baseball. It’s my favorite thing.”
Stout’s Type-A personality helps him in the entrepreneurial realm and on the baseball diamond.
Stout had managed to keep his hand in the game by founding and coaching the Dallas Patriots, a travel-ball team. Texas is rich in baseball prospects, and it was not too long before Stout built a network of college coaches who mined his teams for potential players. His circle of friends grew to include names such as Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin and Tennessee coach Tony Vitello, and Stout even started fielding calls from athletic directors wanting to pick his brain on their next baseball hires.
Still, with a background that was more business than baseball, Stout knew the doors to college coaching would not necessarily fly open. He would need to start small and build up, just as he had done with so many businesses. That is when Torii Hunter entered the picture.
Hunter, a Pine Bluff native and former Major League All-Star, had partnered with Stout on some investments and knew he was itching to coach. Given that UAPB’s baseball stadium bore his name and was made possible by his donations, Hunter wielded some influence over the Golden Lions’ next coaching hire and encouraged Stout to throw his hat into the ring.
Stout knew the challenge that awaited him in Pine Bluff, and he has a vested interest in the program’s success.
Stout was prepared to start at the bottom, and that is what he got. Former coach Carlos James had coached at UAPB with some success for 14 years but left following an interview with the Pine Bluff Commercial in which he called out the university for its dearth of commitment to the baseball program, citing the lack of scholarship money and operating funds.
Stout did not care. When Robinson called about the UAPB job, he was sold — and he was prepared to help fund the program himself.
“I want to take a program that is in desperate need of some love, in desperate need of some funding, desperate need for a turnaround,” Stout said, “just like in business.”
He got his wish. James’ criticism of the program may not have sat well, but he was not incorrect. Stout was handed the keys to a program with only four scholarships and an operating budget of $30,000. The players had been wearing the same uniforms for years, and the field, once a source of civic pride, was in a major state of disrepair.
“This is going to sound twisted and weird, but I looked at my wife, and she looked at me, and I said, ‘This is it,’” Stout said. “The field, you couldn’t even see it. There were weeds. I mean, the whole place was a train wreck. The entire place was an absolute train wreck.”
So was the roster. Stout was hired in July, late for the hiring cycle, and his early days were spent holed up in a room, banging out phone calls to players who were still looking for a place to play.
“I got a call from Coach Stout, and he talked to me for about an hour,” Monceaux said. “Just to hear that over the phone, someone believing in me that much, it was really refreshing.”
Stout did his research before making phone calls, and he knew what he was up against. Type “Pine Bluff, Arkansas” into a Google search, and be prepared for item after item documenting the city’s economic and crime woes. Stout admitted it all threw him for a loop until he actually arrived in town.
“If a kid googles Pine Bluff, Arkansas, it’s not going to be pretty,” Stout said. “Pine Bluff is such a blue-collar, down-to-earth, nonmarketing city. They’re just like, ‘Listen, come meet us. You’ll fall in love with us,’ and they’re right. I actually bring it up in recruiting. I say, ‘Listen, I made the mistake of googling Pine Bluff myself.’ I said to Torii, ‘Dude, no way,’ and he starts laughing and says, ‘Yeah, it’s not what you think. My family still lives there. My best friends still live there.’”
Stout’s recruiting pitch centers on the people his players will meet both on campus and around town. To hear the players tell it, it is working.
“When I came on my visit here, all the people, I love them,” Monceaux said. “They were all so nice, and I really like the campus.”
As for the field, improvements are popping up at a breakneck pace. New bullpens have been installed along the first base line, and construction has begun on a new hitting facility, as well as a “party deck” adjacent to the stands. The weeds are gone, everything has received a fresh coat of paint, and the players are decked out in crisp new uniforms and caps.
Stout is aware of how all that may look from the outside, what with a well-heeled entrepreneur coming in and sprucing up the program. Yet he said his deep pockets never factored into the hiring process and that he never promised a cent to UAPB.
“I don’t think it was a factor,” Stout said, citing his work with the Patriots, as well as his time as a professional scout. “In the baseball world, a lot of people don’t know I’m one of the winningest coaches in amateur baseball. If you look at a resume, I’ll put mine up against anyone’s. I didn’t commit to giving one payment to this program. Now we have. Obviously, with a $30,000 operating budget, this stuff doesn’t happen on its own.”
Yet most of the improvements have come about from Stout’s own fundraising efforts. He wasted little time in connecting with community stakeholders such as Sissy’s Log Cabin and Saracen Casino Resort, and his positive message regarding the city has struck a chord with area businesses and UAPB alums.
“If you’re looking for beautiful people with hearts the size of Arkansas, you’ll find them here,” Stout said.
Stout, who counts Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin and Tennessee’s Tony Vitello among his close coaching contacts, said he is committed to the Pine Bluff community.
Talk to Stout’s players, and one finds all the money and facelifts are beside the point. Among the few who remain on the roster from a year ago, there is a feeling of camaraderie and empowerment that was missing in the past.
“He wants us here,” said Jaylon Nauden, a senior infielder out of Olympia Fields, Illinois, “and he says, ‘I love you.’ I was like, ‘That’s crazy. You never even met me, but you say you love me?’ but I can really feel it. He shows that he loves every single one of us.”
To consider Stout as just an entrepreneur looking for his next challenge is beside the point. He is back to being what he was meant to be all along — a college baseball coach. The fact that he had to arrive at the unlikeliest of places to make that happen just deepens the affection he has for the players who have trusted him and the town that has embraced him.
It is a love affair that goes both ways.
“We want to live here,” Stout said. “If I’m very honest with you, I want to live here. I mean, for us, it’s not just the baseball team. We want to try to make an impact in the community.”
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