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Gene's Blog: Our piranha sets up Tommies for success
4/21/2020 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
On the baseball field for St. Thomas, and later in one season of pro ball with the St. Paul Saints, Jake Smith always punched above his weight class.
It's no surprise he's showing wisdom beyond his age in his current role guiding Tommie entrepreneurs.
Several popular Minnesota Twins players earned the nickname "Piranhas" in 2017. Guys like Jason Bartlett, Nick Punto, Jason Tyner, and Luis Castillo tormented opposing pitchers with hustle, long at-bats, bunt hits, plus an occasional killer line drive into the gap.
The 5-foot-8 Smith was a piranha in his own right as a fierce Division III competitor here from 2015-2018.
And now our piranha is contributing like a Shark Tank shark in his post-collegiate business career.
To be clear, Smith doesn't have Mark Cuban's deep pockets. And the humble Smith certainly wouldn't flash Cuban's swagger.
Smith instead brings passion, energy and ideas to help a variety of individuals either take the first step, or the next steps, in their entrepreneurial journey.
The Apple Valley, Minn., native and 2018 St. Thomas graduate is starting his second season on campus as director of the gALPHA and gBETA business accelerator partnership.
With gBETA, Smith works to connect start-ups with experts to refine their business models, meet mentors, strategize growth, expand customers and pitch investors. His work with gALPHA involves Tommie undergrads and grads who have entrepreneurial ideas that need development.
"We focus our efforts on three key areas: developing an entrepreneurial mindset, working in the business, and working on the business," Smith explained. Beyond offering advice and challenging conventional wisdom, Smith said his role is to be a bridge between companies and identifying the right mentors for their stage and industry.
The partnership, created by the Richard Schulze Family Foundation, mirrors the work done by St. Thomas' Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. The Princeton Review in 2019 ranked the Schulze school the nation's 35th best Entrepreneurship program for undergrads -- and No. 1 in Minnesota. It's also among just five Catholic schools in the national 50-school rankings.
Soar Like an Eagle
While growing up in youth baseball programs in Apple Valley, Tyus Jones was a teammate and friend of Smith. But by ninth grade, Jones had turned his full focus in sports to basketball. Smith recalls that on the path to Duke University and the National Basketball Association, Jones' poise and drive left a strong impression.
"Tyus was a good friend of mine when we were growing up, we played together until our 14-year-olds season," Smith said "He's always had an amazing ability to treat business like business, but treat fun as fun. He handled the spotlight so well, all the attention, the relationships. Given all he was doing, his maturity really came through."
As a rookie Tommie baseball player in 2015, Smith himself made a immediate impression on his coach, Chris Olean. Wearing jersey No. 1 and inserted as the team's leadoff hitter, Smith singled in his first college plate appearance. He had four hits on that opening day in Arizona, which produced two 12-inning wins over nationally-ranked teams.
Those were the first two of 49 multiple-hit games for Smith with the Purple. He finished with a career batting average of .330 -- and an on-base percentage of .408 -- with 189 hits in 161 games. He reached base 265 times via hit, walk or hit by pitch, and drove in 96 runs and scored 133 runs.
Smith's 54 career extra-base hits included seven home runs alone as a junior in 2017. An All-Region honoree and a three-time All-MIAC pick, he recorded a 17-game hitting streak as a sophomore, and closed his junior season on a 15-game hitting streak. His 13 career triples were one off the school record. In three seasons as centerfielder, he threw out eight runners trying to advance. He helped St. Thomas win or share two MIAC championships and post 98 victories during his era.
"Jake was a tremendous member of our program," Olean said. "He was unique in that he was the rare athlete that was our best player and our best leader. He worked extremely hard, and did it with a positive attitude that has not been matched in my time coaching. He came with a fire and energy every day to practice, and was a fierce competitor between the lines. Jake was one of those guys that you just knew was going to have a great deal of success in whatever area he went into. I'm thrilled to see him back at St Thomas and doing such valuable work."
Smith said he has fond memories of his Tommie baseball experiences and the chance to interact with so many teammates and coaches.
"Playing baseball provided me some of the most difficult yet rewarding challenges I ever faced," he said. "It was a lot of fun, and it was a four-year commitment that I'm proud to have made. The Tommie program certainly had a huge impact on me and my development."
Switching Gears
Smith started at St. Thomas with an Engineering major, in part because of his analytical nature. After he caught the entrepreneurial bug as a Tommie student, he said "I became hooked." He launched or planned several business ventures as part of his classroom assignments and graduated with a degree with an Entrepreneurship major.
One example of a new product that Jake advised on -- and won the recent St. Thomas Business Plan Competition -- is Moody's Ice Cream, created by St. Thomas MBA student Rachael Rinehart . Moody's is a premium ice cream with the mood-boosting properties of essential oils to create what it calls "the ultimate feel-good, sensory experience."
Smith also assisted the creators of Tiny Tap, a venture created by two Tommie alums that included a miniature beer truck with keg lines. "They sold at some events, and said 'We think we have something here, so what do we have to do next?' We worked to polish that idea to see what would be the best growth opportunity for them."
Smith compares entrepreneurship with baseball, where even the best hitters fail two of every three times at the plate, and resilience is an valuable quality. He talks about the need to be coachable but eventually gain the knowledge and confidence to develop business instincts.
"One of the best pieces of advice I got from my St. Thomas baseball coaches," Smith said, "was to learn to become your best coach. What an outsider says doesn't always matter as much. Young entrepreneurs need to evolve and get the confidence to become their best coach.
"A phrase that gets thrown around a lot by entrepreneurs is 'Fail fast and fail often.' Every single interaction is an opportunity to learn and develop your hypothesis. You could get every number and calculation right and you can still fail with an idea. That goes hand in hand with baseball, where preparation doesn't guarantee success. But when you're walking back to the dugout after a strikeout, your mental turnaround has to be immediate. Successful people experience failure but step right back up the plate."
Smith said that while the Covid-19 outbreak has caused pain and economic uncertainly, he sees an opportunity for entrepreneurs and companies moving forward. There's a great lesson, he said, in the craft brewer who shifts the operation to manufacture hand sanitizer.
PHOTO: Smith and Ron Fowler chat at the annual Fowler Business Concept Challenge
Tommie Mentors
Smith said his opportunity to observe and collaborate with entrepreneurs like Schulze and Ron Fowler has been invaluable. Schulze founded the Best Buy company and is the namesake of St. Thomas' school of entrepreneurship, and like Fowler is a past member of the St. Thomas Board of Trustees. Both have been champions of the university as leaders and benefactors.
Fowler (Class of '66) who is currently the President of the San Diego Padres, started on the ground floor in the beverage business 50 years ago. He steadily climbed in leadership roles and eventually ran one of the largest distributors in southern California. Fowler sponsors the annual Fowler Business Concept Challenge. That program awards scholarship money to the best entrepreneurial ideas and business pitches by St. Thomas undergraduate and graduate students.
Fowler's competitions have expanded to emphasize a Social Venture category to reward ideas geared toward improving society. Two gALPHA teams that Smith assisted -- DigiConnections and BraillEasy -- will represent St. Thomas at the national Fowler Social Venture competition this June. Abeney Ayana and Amanda Baumgart created BraillEasy, a detachable smart phone case with a built-in braille reader and writer that helps blind users access braille. Fellow Tommie students Himani Joshi and Brianna Kirk created DigiConnections, a distributor of unused TV channels to improve the digital divide in rural and educational markets.
"It's so rewarding to work with Dick Schulze and his team, and to work with Ron Fowler and his team," Smith said "Both are incredible philanthropists and visionaries. They see they vision of businesses reshaping the world, and doing good in every corner. The resources they provide have catapulted so many businesses. Both have set a great legacy to follow."
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Gene's Blog is a sports column penned by UST sports information director Gene McGivern. Gene is in his 26th season at St. Thomas and 32nd overall in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. He blogs periodically on various topics regarding the Tommies, the MIAC and Division III sports.
If you have comments or questions, e-mail Gene at ejmcgivern@stthomas.edu
