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Coaching the Ramstein Royals baseball team this season is a familiar name with Travis Shoffner taking over the top spot after spending the previous five years as a Royals assistant.
Shoffner said his emphasis when practices started was to keep players focused on making sure they will do the work necessary to accomplish goals. The program went through tryouts and their initial weeks of work last week and they will try to repeat the success of last season’s DODEA Euro championship. The season begins next weekend with a road trip against SHAPE International School in Belgium.
“We will use some of the same principles that were put in place here by Coach (Tom) Yost,” Shoffner said. “He and I were friends before he first asked me to join his staff and I am excited to have this opportunity now as the head coach.”
Shoffner said his assistants will include Tim Slusney, Steve Oswald and maybe a man or two more. Yost had a veteran staff and strung together the best run in DODEA diamond history, winning five straight Euro titles before stepping aside in 2017. Those Ramstein teams built an expectation of winning that Shoffner thinks can carry over once RHS gets going in 2018.
“Those expectations, though, come from the outside moreso than within the program,”Shoffner, a 20-year Air Force veteran retiree, said. “We try to get our players to be clear on all that is needed – all the work, conditioning, and commitment that is involved — for them to have success. A lot of people believe that because it’s Ramstein we are automatically going to be successful. There is a lot that has to happen on the players’ parts for success to happen.”
Shoffner works at USAFE Command Headquarters and has a son, Tieran, on the current Royals squad. He and his wife, Keilah, had assignments in Yakota, Japan; Andrews AFB in Washington, Aviano, Italy; and Stuttgart before coming to Ramstein. He said the short length — less than three months — of the DODEA season makes it possible for players to get involved in other baseball circuits.
“A lot of the success here has been because local kids take advantage of all that the Ambassadors baseball program has to offer,” Shoffner said. “That program gives kids who are serious about baseball a chance to throw and hit in the offseasons, plus allowing them to play in tournaments in the Netherlands, Brussels, Belgium and all around Germany. We like to see our players putting in individual work when we are not into our season.”
