°ĆÀÖÊÓÆ”

Rasmussen Experiences A Boxer-Influenced Playoff Moment
Nate Rasmussen '12 Coaching
Nate Rasmussen '12, right, discusses strategy with Kyle Treadway '15 while coaching the Utah Valley University baseball team. The two Boxer alumni helped lead the Wolverines to the Western Athletic Conference title and an appearance in the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament in Rasmussen's first year as head coach. Photo courtesy of Utah Valley Athletic Communications.

In the goal-driven world of collegiate coaching, Nate Rasmussen ’12 is content living in the moment.

That’s not to say that Rasmussen, who played and coached at °ĆÀÖÊÓÆ”, doesn’t have goals for himself or his baseball team at Division I Utah Valley University. He has plenty, but these days, goals have a place in the lineup behind the enjoyment of the day-to-day work with his players.

“I am a little unique compared to most, especially in the head-coaching culture,” said Rasmussen, who was named the head baseball coach at Utah Valley in summer 2024. “I used to be a real goal-oriented person. I was coaching and pursuing goals rather than living the day-to-day work. So I just decided to turn it off and say, ‘I’m just gonna be really good where my feet are.’’’

It is safe to say that Rasmussen not only has his feet planted but is making the big time where he is.

Rasmussen’s first season as head coach delivered plenty of magical moments. After tying for third place in the Western Athletic Conference’s (WAC) regular-season standings, the Wolverines went 4-0 to win the and earn the school’s first trip to the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship since 2016.

In the opening round of the Eugene Regional, Utah Valley pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the tournament, on the Ducks’ home field. The Wolverines’ only tournament win was the pinnacle moment in a season where the team leaned into Rasmussen’s philosophy of living in the moment and improving each day.

“I didn’t come into this year thinking we needed to win a regional. We didn’t talk about winning the WAC. We didn’t talk about winning a certain amount of games,” Rasmussen said. “All we talked about is getting better every single day. You don’t establish a stopping point.”

Entering the season, Utah Valley was picked to finish sixth in the nine-team WAC. The Wolverines ended the year with a 33-29 record.

Building and growing programs has become second nature to Rasmussen, who was part of building success both as a player and a coach at Pacific. A three-time All-Northwest Conference infielder, earning first-team honors in 2011, Rasmussen was a starter on Pacific’s 2012 team that .

Upon graduation, Rasmussen joined the coaching staff at rival Puget Sound before moving with head coach Brian Billings to Pacific in 2015. In his four years as associate head coach and recruiting coordinator, the Boxers laid the foundation for what has become one of NCAA Division III’s consistently successful baseball programs.

“I have a tremendous amount of pride in the growth at Pacific,” Rasmussen said. “By my senior year, we won a share of the conference title. I felt like we had transitioned as a program. And then coming back as a coach was one of the first rebuilds that I had been part of. We went from that to the most wins in school history at the time. It taught me how to work, how to figure things out.”

Nate Rasmussen, Kyle Treadway & CJ Colyer

How It Started

Before coming together to lead Utah Valley to its 2025 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament run, Nate Rasmussen '12, Kyle Treadway '15 and CJ Colyer '24 were Boxers. Rasmussen (left) and Treadway (center) were part of Pacific's 2012 Northwest Conference championship team while Colyer was the 2024 NWC Player of the Year while setting the Pacific single-season record for home runs. Photos courtesy of °ĆÀÖÊÓÆ” Athletics.

Body

Rasmussen credits Billings, , for influencing much of his on-field coaching style and for learning how to build a winning atmosphere within a team. He credits , who led the Boxers from 1996 to 2014, for teaching him what caring for players and hard work look like.

“Bradley just had an inherent love for his players. You could just feel that,” Rasmussen said. “There was never a time when I questioned his care of each one of us or his desire for us to be successful. He worked incredibly hard and showed us what work ethic looked like.”

Following Pacific, Rasmussen spent two seasons on the staff at Division I Northern Colorado. He then spent three seasons as a hitting instructor in the Minnesota Twins organization, working with players with the Gulf Coast Twins and Fort Myers Mighty Mussels before returning to the Beehive State. After the 2025 season, Rasmussen signed a contract extension that will keep him at Utah Valley through 2029.

A film major in his first two years at Pacific, Rasmussen changed his major to business administration with a marketing emphasis because he felt like the classes better fit around his baseball schedule. Looking back, he realizes that those business classes were just as critical in his success as a coach as the hours in the dugout or hitting cage.

The 2024 Northwest Conference Player of the Year in his final season at Pacific, CJ Colyer '24 batted .309 for Utah Valley in 2025 and was a key offensive tool for the Wolverines in the postseason. Following the year, Colyer signed a professional contract with the Billings (Montana) Mustangs of the Pioneer League. Photo courtesy of Utah Valley Athletic Communications.

“It taught me as much as any coach in terms of recruiting,” Rasmussen said. “We talked about price, place, promotion and product. And that’s what we do here, right? My marketing degree set me up for a lot of success early on, specifically in recruiting. It got me thinking about things globally rather than just thinking about it in a baseball context.”

While Rasmussen is eight years removed from Pacific, Boxer Spirit influences the Wolverines’ success. Upon becoming head coach, he brought in fellow Boxer Kyle Treadway ’15 as the team’s pitching coach. The program has welcomed three graduate transfers from Pacific in Rasmussen’s four years with the program: Isaac Lovings ’23, Joey Harmon ’24 and CJ Colyer ’24.

During the 2025 playoff run, Colyer proved to be a key piece of the Wolverines’ success. and the Boxers’ single-season and career home run leader, Colyer batted .309 with 38 hits, 36 RBI and eight home runs in 43 games and 29 starts for Utah Valley. Colyer started the final 10 games of the season and his three-run ninth-inning homer in the team’s 3-1 WAC Tournament win over Abilene Christian was a needed offensive and confidence boost.

Pacific prepared Colyer for that moment. “Colyer had played on big stages. He had to transition to Division I arms, but he didn’t need to learn the importance of how far they had come and what winning meant to them. There was never a moment where we had to talk about competing. That was part of him already, and Pacific does a great job of instilling that in players.”

While it has been several years since Rasmussen has visited the Forest Grove Campus, Pacific keeps coming to him. And it serves as a reminder of how, in that moment, Pacific set the foundation for all the moments that have followed.

“Pacific is a really special place, to be honest,” Rasmussen said. “It’s really hard to put your foot in it, but I feel like the people who go there have this inherent pride. I have worked a few different places, but I still check in on Pacific. I don’t check in on all of them. Pacific breeds people that want to continue to be involved.”
 

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