Caleb Joseph started off as a towel boy for Lipscomb’s basketball games. Then he played for Lipscomb’s baseball team. Today, he is playing in minor league baseball, and it’s all due to the influence of his idols – Lipscomb athletes.
Joseph had family who attended Lipscomb University, and was involved in Lipscomb athletics from a young age. Even though a Jr. Bisons Club did not officially exist until 2009, Lipscomb has been getting kids involved with athletics since 1978.
Joseph was part of that effort, and remembers looking up to athletes.
“When you’re a kid, they seem so much older, they have that mega-star quality,” Joseph said. “You want to grow up and be just like them.”
Joseph warming up for a game.
Joseph was drafted in 2008, his junior year in college at Lipscomb University, by the Baltimore Orioles. He played last summer for the club’s AA Bowie (Maryland) Baysox and then began catching for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona fall league.
Joseph said while he was playing catcher for the Bisons, there were many bat boys – mostly ages 5 and 6 – who spent time with players on the field. He remembers a pair of twins who loved being bat boys so much they stayed on for the whole season.
Joseph said Lipscomb athletics contributed greatly to who he is today.
“I remember him when he was just a little towel boy,” Andy Lane, executive director of the National Bison Club at Lipscomb, said. “Now he’s all grown up – we really feel like next year he may be in the big leagues.”
Lane remembers Caleb Joseph as a youngster, but knows that kids do not stay young forever. Those kids who look up to student athletes are the most devoted fans. They are also more likely to become athletes at Lipscomb when they have a personal connection with student athletes.
“Any time the kids are around our student athletes, that’s a great thing – they get a chance to meet them, get to know them. That’s what we want because in the blink of an eye, those kids might be the student athletes,” Lane said.
Megan Forester, promotions director for Lipscomb’s athletic department, thinks that kids make the best fans.
Forester has made it one of her goals this year to get kids and parents from the community more involved in Lipscomb’s athletic events. She said kids will come back to Lipscomb because of the one-on-one connection they make with athletes.
The Jr. Bison Club is a program that gets families involved in Lipscomb’s sporting events by reaching out to local children. The kids get to be ball boys and girls for baseball, basketball, soccer, and other sports. They also get to spend time with the players after the games.
Ultimately, the Jr. Bisons Club tries to foster personal relationships between kids and athletes. These kids may become more than fans one day – hopefully, they will follow in the footsteps of their heroes and play sports for Lipscomb.
The goal is to get kids the same kind of experience that Caleb Joseph had – getting to know Lipscomb’s athletes as a kid, getting to play for Lipscomb as a student, and giving back to Lipscomb’s athletic program as an alumni.