At age 6, Duke Baxter yearned to step out onto the plate, eye an oncoming ball, connect with his bat and—CRACK!—knock it past the opposing team, paving the way for his teammates to round the bases for home. But when his time at bat came, the youngest Little Leaguer on the Raritan Red Sox started freaking out. He’d practice and practice, but still strike out. As he was thinking I can’t do this, his coach got onto one knee, looked him in the eye and said, “You’re gonna hit the next one.”
Confidence renewed, Baxter swung and missed but eventually connected with the ball, hitting it to the shortstop. He was out on the play, but he gained knowledge that still resonates: Someone believed in him.
“That’s what a coach is: He brings confidence to any situation,” says Baxter, who continued on to play baseball in the Bridgewater school system, at Elon University in North Carolina and the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, then professionally for the Madison Black Wolf baseball club in Wisconsin and the Somerset Patriots. “That is why I became a coach: Knowing that I could impact kids and adults in ways they sometimes can’t themselves.”
In 2002, his last year with the Patriots, Baxter founded Zoned Sports Academy in Bridgewater, a baseball and softball developmental training facility that works with everyone from new athletes to professionals through classes, camps and private instruction. “We train kids as young as 6 and have trained people in their 70s,” he says. Currently, it also trains 11 high schools in New Jersey and neighboring states and manages the Red Hawks, 15 traveling teams for players ages 10 to 17.
One of the most exciting events is the Zoned Signing Day when young athletes who will be playing collegiate ball on any level walk up in front of their family and friends to sign a paper that announces where they are going to play. “We make a jersey that has the name of their high school on the left side, the college they will attend on the right and their name on the back. We frame it and present it to them,” he says. “It’s a night when the athletes and their loved ones can celebrate that they made it, that all the training was worth it. On actual Signing Day, only Division I athletes get to sign; at our event, no matter the division, it’s all the same. They’ve all reached the goal to play at the next level.”
The trainers include professional and collegiate players such as Mikey Nikorak, a first-round draft pick with the Colorado Rockies; Steve Nikorak, who played with the Chicago White Sox; Shawn Eickhorst, who led the NCAA Division III in batting average and RBIs while at Fairleigh Dickinson University; and Brandon Martorano, a catcher with the San Francisco Giants.
Zoned also trains coaches on how to effectively run a practice and manage a team. Recently, it launched “Dominate the Diamond,” an online training program for coaches that gives them practice templates and plans, as well as teaches them fundamentals like how to create a lineup card and do drills. “Almost three-quarters of kids quit playing sports by 13, and it’s not because they stopped having fun. It’s because they have an issue with the coach,” says Baxter, who along with Steve Nikorak published their advice in the book Taking on the Title of Coach: A 5 Step Guide for Coaching Youth Baseball and Softball.
Giving back is also important. “My wife, Michelle, and I both grew up in Bridgewater and live here now,” he says. “We do players’ clinics, fundraisers for the Little League and are part of the Somerset County Business Partnership.”
In 2007, Zoned began awarding $10,000 scholarships to five athletes annually, based on their GPA, community service and letters of recommendation. To date, they have given more than $200,000 in scholarships.
When Baxter asks his players what they like most about the sport, they tell him it’s the friendships they make. “Baseball and softball instill so many life lessons: resilience, work ethic, the hustle,” he says. “You learn that your team has your back and that sometimes you have to do the stuff you don’t want to do like practice in the rain or play a position you don’t like because it is your turn.”
But foremost is respect. “You respect your coaches and your teammates. You respect the opposing team. You shake hands with everyone, including the umpires, when you lose,” he says.
These are lessons he and Michelle have instilled in their children: Madelyn, a freshman at Penn State who played softball but now is a competitive gymnast, and three sons—Matthew, a sophomore, Brady, seventh grade, and Tyler, fifth grade—who still play baseball and are three-sport athletes.
When a game is over, Baxter encourages the team to stress the highlights, rather than what went wrong. “We might have lost 20 to zero, but a player will say, ‘It was so cool how Matthew dove for that ball and almost caught it,’ and then Matthew lights up like he just won the lottery. Once you’re on a team, it’s about all of us.”
Learn more about how to develop your skills at zonedinc.com and check out Zoned and Dominate the Diamond on social media for help with drills and skills, motivational messages and more.
