Alumnus tells how Liberty Baseball’s humble beginnings had a big impact on his life

Jeff Mincey (’78), who played catcher on Liberty University’s inaugural baseball team, never thought that the small Baptist college that he arrived at in 1974 would have such a sizable influence in changing the trajectory of his life.

Mincey was born in 1955 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. He developed a love for baseball during elementary school that resulted in the talented catcher garnering interest from the Cincinnati Reds by the time he was a senior in high school. But Mincey desired to pursue college before becoming a professional.

“Baseball was a big part of my life ever since I was a young boy,” Mincey said. “When I was young, I began to have a desire to play professionally. That desire and my love for the Lord were the two big motivators in my life.”

Liberty University (named Lynchburg Baptist College at the time) came calling late in Mincey’s senior year, offering the talented participant in America’s pastime a full-tuition scholarship. In the fall of 1974, Mincey drove from California to Lynchburg, Va., to pursue a degree in physical education and help start Liberty’s first baseball team.

Upon his arrival, Mincey was informed by Head Coach Al Worthington that out of the 21 scholarship players who had committed to forming the team, he was one of only two who decided to remain. The others left after seeing the makeshift dorms on Treasure Island, a property on the James River that Liberty used for practices before campus was built.

“There was nothing there in Lynchburg really,” Mincey said. “We had barrack-style dorms on Treasure Island which was a youth camp in the summers. There wasn’t even a college campus or a ballpark for us to play baseball at. When the other 19 scholarship guys came and saw nothing, they left. The rest of the players were all either athletes from Liberty’s other sports teams or just walk-ons from the school.”

As a professional baseball hopeful, news that the majority of his teammates had departed for greener pastures was not news he had hoped to hear. But with Worthington’s deep pool of high-level baseball connections, Mincey and his gang of walk-on teammates played Liberty’s first collegiate baseball season as an NAIA independent and were matched against sizable opponents. Games were played at Lynchburg’s City Stadium.

The first couple years of records and stats no longer exist, but according to Mincey, the school’s first-ever collegiate baseball game was against the University of South Carolina, which was ranked among the NCAA’s Division I Top 25.

“We got destroyed,” Mincey said. “I think the score was 21-6. After the game, I looked at Coach and asked him why we were even here.”

Due to the efforts of Mincey and his teammates, Liberty Baseball made a remarkable turnaround, reaching the 30-win mark just two seasons later in 1976. In that same season, the Flames also returned the favor against South Carolina, upsetting the No. 17-ranked Gamecocks in the final game. The year prior, the Gamecocks had lost the College World Series and finished the season No. 2 in the country.

Mincey led the Flames in 1976 with nine home runs and 21 RBIs. Following the season, he was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Major League Baseball Draft but decided to instead return to Liberty for his final year of eligibility.

Due to student teaching requirements for physical education majors, Mincey remained at Liberty for a fifth year and graduated in May 1978. Mincey said he never played professional baseball because of personal reasons and instead he and his wife, Deborah, moved to Florida, where he pursued a career coaching high school baseball teams.

“Not playing professionally was a tough pill to swallow, but the Lord had other plans for my life,” he said.

In 1980, Mincey returned to his alma mater to be a member of the baseball team’s coaching staff under Worthington. He helped lead the Flames to three straight trips to the NAIA World Series from 1981-83 and played a role in assisting the program in its rise from the NAIA to NCAA Division I in 1984, becoming the first Liberty team to reach Division I status.

As a pioneer in Liberty Baseball, Mincey has followed the program’s success, from the first games played at the city’s facilities to ones on its own field on campus, to the now state-of-the-art Worthington Field at Liberty Baseball Stadium, rated as one of the nation’s finest baseball facilities and ranked in the top five in best college ballpark experiences.

“The baseball program has come so far since my teammates and I played here, and the facilities that these athletes are afforded are absolutely incredible,” he said.

Mincey will be one of six inductees into Liberty’s 2020 Athletics Hall of Fame on Oct. 9. The class will also be recognized on Oct. 10 during the Homecoming Weekend football game against Louisiana-Monroe at Williams Stadium.

Read more about the 2020 Hall of Fame class.