La Crosse Loggers assistant coach Juan Carlos Calderon stood at one side of the Copeland Park batting cage, hitting ground balls to infielders and chatting with players waiting to take their swings on a recent afternoon.

It is the comfortable pre-game routine of a baseball lifer, a label Calderon proudly wears, but his life in baseball has been far from ordinary.

Calderon, 28, is from Caracas, Venezuela, so it was almost inevitable that he would fall in love with baseball in a country that is obsessed by the sport.

He remembers playing for the first time at age 4, and absorbing the game even before that through his father, Pedro, who was on a semi-pro team.

Calderon grew up playing on Caracas’ primitive, rocky fields or in the street; wherever there was a game.

It was baseball “Latin style,” utilizing speed and small-ball, with the on-field chatter and energy levels cranked high.

By the time he was a teenager, Calderon was good enough to earn an invitation to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Venezuelan baseball academy and was on track to play professionally.

But Calderon suffered a broken right leg while at the academy, setting him back nearly a year, and pro baseball became a long shot.

Two of Calderon’s friends and teammates from Caracas, Miguel Montero (Arizona Diamondbacks) and Franklin Gutierrez (Seattle Mariners) made it to the big leagues.

Instead, Calderon took the advice of a coach who recommended college baseball in the United States. He could keep playing, receive an education, and get out of troubled Venezuela.

“I wanted to play pro, that was my dream,” Calderon said. “But this opportunity came up and I used baseball to pay for school. It’s been a long road but I’ve been coaching for four years now, building my resume.”

Calderon prepared for college by spending a year learning English at a school in Trinidad and Tobago.

Then it was time to leave his country, family and friends. Calderon was headed for Bellevue University (Neb.). He had to say goodbye to his parents, Pedro and Migdalia, and older brother Quintin, for the first time.

“At the beginning, it was really, really tough,” Calderon said. “I was always with them, and you wake up one night knowing I would not see them for a year. It was hard. That first time, I cried. Now I’m used to it. I don’t think too much about it but I talk to them every night. It’s hard for them, too. They want me to grow up here and get my job and get going with my life.”

Calderon transferred to Western Texas College, then Oakland City University (Ind.), where he batted .345 over his final two seasons and earned a bachelor’s degree in business and sports administration.

“My goal was to keep playing and I got invited to independent ball but I didn’t go because it was such low pay,” Calderon said. “I sat down with my parents and coach and they said, ‘Well, do you want to get an education? The way to go is to get your master’s and a lot of doors are going to open.’”

Calderon started thinking seriously about coaching while he was finishing his degree at Oakland City. He was required to do an internship, and while working in the front office for a summer league team, realized how much he missed being on the field.

“I talked to one of the coaches and he told me to look at getting a GA (graduate assistant) position while working on my master’s and you work your way up doing that,” Calderon said.

That’s how Calderon got to Iowa Lakes Community College in 2011 and joined coach Jason Nell’s staff as a graduate assistant.

Sticking with his plan, Calderon took master’s degree courses in leadership in higher education through Iowa State. He finished this spring.

Nell didn’t hesitate to ask Calderon to join him when he was hired as the Loggers’ manager last fall.

“He’s going to be an outstanding head coach one of these days,” Nell said. “I told him I want to go with him because he’s that good. I’ve treated him like he’s one of my own since he’s been with me. The young man is disciplined, he’s got priorities, he works hard. He’s just an awesome young man and he’s only getting better.”

Like any good coach at the developmental levels, Calderon is trying to help players improve.

“I want these guys to get better than they were at the beginning of the summer,” Calderon said. “That’s what I want to get out of this. I got a text from a player I coached last summer and he thanked me for everything I did. That makes me work harder. I grew up playing baseball and I probably don’t know too much but I know what I did and what I’ve gone through.”

While forging his career and future in the United States, Calderon will always have strong feelings for his family and turbulent home country.

Former president Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer this past March, was an outspoken opponent of the United States and its policies. His hand-picked successor, Nicholas Maduro, won a closely-contested election in April.

Although it has been reported that Chavez lifted many average Venezuelans out of poverty, the oil-rich country still suffers from high inflation and deteriorating infrastructure.

“I talk to quite a few friends and my family back home and they are saying things are getting hard,” Calderon said. “Before this last election, to buy food they didn’t have to go make lines. Now you have to do lines to get a package of rice, one for every person, and one package of beans for every person, and toilet paper is one package of four for every person. Prices are going up and salaries are staying the same.

“It’s hard but at the same time it makes me work harder since I want to try to help my family somehow, some way. So far, I’ve been like a college student but once I get a job I’m just going to try to save money and help them. I worry; I know they are working hard at home and at the same time I think I’ve got to work hard too and do things the right way to keep going.”