The ultimate player’s coach and family man is now the winningest manager in Northwoods League history with 301 career wins
By Nick Erickson, Eau Claire Express
Nobody else has ever managed the Eau Claire Express baseball club besides Mr. Dale Varsho, who has managed every game since the team started in 2005.
Now, after a 7-4 win over the Wisconsin Woodchucks on July 25, 2013, nobody else has ever won more Northwoods League baseball games from the managerial spot than Varsho, as he collected his record-setting 301st win to break former Kenosha, Waterloo and Madison manager Darrell Handelsman’s record of 300.
Every journey has its story, and for the quiet, patient and humble leader of the burnt orange and black, his story begins after almost hanging up his coaching cleats.
How It All Started
In 2004, the former Viterbo University baseball coach was finishing up coaching a legion team in his hometown of Marshfield, Wis. His wife, Jennifer said he had heard through the grapevine Eau Claire was getting a team and seeking a manager. He had previously expressed interest in working with the Wisconsin Woodchucks, but it just never worked out, and that led to a discussion about wrapping up his managing career for a while.
After a Legion tournament at Carson Park, however, two gentleman, former owner Jeff Jones and current owner Bill Rowlett, said they were interested in having Dale at the helm of their up and coming organization.
“We had just had that discussion about hanging it up,” Jennifer Varsho said. “Then, they approached him with the Express job.”
The Varsho family, who at the time had two kids, Jake and Averie, made the trek back up to Eau Claire the following weekend, where Dale went off with Jones and Rowlett to discuss the chances of becoming the team’s Field Manager.
Deep down, Jennifer knew what was going to happen.
“I know, and everybody knows, that baseball is a part of Dale,” she said. “He had already moved from Viterbo University back to Marshfield to be a fitness director at the YMCA, and it just wasn’t for him, it wasn’t baseball. I knew, in some capacity, leaving the sport wasn’t a realistic option.”
The rest, as they say, is history. At first, Dale was a summer-only manager in 2005, making the hour and a half trip from Marshfield to Eau Claire. That soon changed when he was offered a full-time spot after the inaugural season as the Director of Baseball Operations. In 2013, he still holds that job.
But even he didn’t think becoming the full-time manager would be an option.
“I thought it would be a couple of years while I figured out what I wanted to do,” Varsho said.
It has blossomed, and he has become a well-known figure in the Eau Claire community, giving the people of the city a reason to cheer and rally behind something.
The entire Varsho family moved to Eau Claire with him on what is going on five years now. The family, which now includes a third child in Christian James, better known around the ballpark as CJ, has got to experience first hand just what Dale means to everybody around him.
Impeccable Person, Amazing Coach
“Winning is important, but it’s more about giving players the best experience,” Varsho said. “We go overboard of making sure they’re treated the best they possibly can in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.”
Varsho’s style of managing, and his style in general, is that of the easygoing variety. He is incredibly soft-spoken and is a calming presence for players.
“He’s super laid-back and he just makes the game fun,” current Express utility player Tim Zier said. “He’ll joke around with you, but at the same time, he’ll instruct you to do what’s right.”
Finding that balance has been a big key for Varsho, and it’s a balance that not a lot of coaches can perfect to the art that he has.
Varsho understands that the young men he coaches are 19, 20, 21 and 22 year-olds who are away from home for the summer.
For former player Kole Calhoun, who was the Express MVP in 2007, he said that when he and his friend, Dominic Piazza, came to Eau Claire that summer, they had no idea what they were in for. But Calhoun said he and Piazza couldn’t have possibly been any luckier landing with Varsho.
“Right away, [we could see] it was more than this guy was going to be our coach,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun stayed three summers in Eau Claire and will forever go down as one of the best players the organization has and will ever see. He has three different career Express records to go along with five single season records. He said Varsho’s demeanor as a manager was the reason he kept coming up to northern Wisconsin from the southwestern portion of the United States.
“It was just always fun to play for him,” Calhoun said. “He always sat back and let guys do their thing. He’s not a very vocal guy, but whenever something needed to be said, it would be said. He lets guys go out and play and have fun and that was the reason I kept coming back.”
Calhoun continued praising his former coach, saying, “on top of that, he was just a standout guy. He did everything for me. He was more like a father figure.”
Zier, who currently plays his college ball at San Diego State, gave Varsho quite the honor, considering his college coach is none other than baseball legend, Tony Gwynn.
“I personally asked to come back here, because, to be honest, he’s always been my favorite coach,” Zier said.
Needless to say, Varsho is a great baseball coach. He gave the city of Eau Claire a Northwoods League Championship in 2010 en route to being named the league’s Manager of the Year.
He has also developed some great baseball players. Calhoun, for one, has made the rise all the way to show. He is an outfielder in the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim organization, and he has seen the big league field, bouncing around from Triple-A and the Major Leagues. In fact, for Triple-A Salt Lake City earlier this year, he had a three-home run game. He said Varsho helped him develop as a player as well because of his managerial style.
“He is truly a pro-ball style manager,” Calhoun said. “With me, getting out there and putting me in the lineup every day really helped prepare me for pro-ball and go out and play the game at the highest level.”
Varsho has seen more than 50 of his players reach either the Minor or Major Leagues. Of course, the most famous of them right now, Washington Nationals’ pitcher Jordan Zimmermann, played on Varsho’s Marshfield Legion team and then for Eau Claire in 2006 and he said he wouldn’t have been in Eau Claire had it not been for Dale.
When asked why he came to play in Eau Claire for Dale Varsho that summer, Zimmermann responded, “You said it right there. Coach Varsho. I played with him in Marshfield, and it was a good fit.”
Clearly, Dale is a great baseball coach; otherwise Express nation would not be celebrating such a monumental accomplishment.
But it all bounces back to his personality and character. Jennifer sees it everyday at home, and she said his calming presence is the same off the field as it is on. It is no surprise to her to hear players say her husband is a mentor, because she has seen it first hand.
“Dale is definitely a mentor to these kids and he takes their lives and their careers very seriously,” she said. “Anything he can do to build them up, character wise and skill wise, that’s what he strives to do.”
The humble Varsho, who clearly has made a difference in so many lives, once again gave credit to others, as he said how having great relationships with his players has made his job easy.
“I’ve only taken this job to help players and develop players and try to make them better,” he said. “The record is something special, but it’s really about the players.”
“Does he want to get the wins? Of course he does,” Jennifer said. “But the most important thing for him is that they’re healthy, they’re happy and they’re getting the best experience.”
Now, the family man and father of three sits alone atop the Northwoods League pedestal. But the literally hundreds, even thousands of people who have been directly or indirectly affected by his amazing demeanor share this honor with him, because he has made them apart of his whole experience. He truly is one of a kind.
