It took three schools in four semesters, but Tyson Ellis has finally found the right home at stop No. 4
Ellis, a 2017 Columbia graduate, recently signed to Troy University to pitch next season after turning heads at Pensacola State College this past spring. The opportunity to pitch at a Division I school is a dream come true for Ellis, but one that wasn’t easy to achieve.
It was a long journey for Ellis. He transferred twice, tore part of his labrum in his throwing shoulder and was doubted and felt discarded by his coach at Gulf Coast College.
He considered giving up. Then he got a call from an old friend.
Dalton Mauldin, a 2014 Columbia graduate and at the time a player for Bethune-Cookman, asked Ellis to come out to Wyoming to pitch in the Expedition League, a summer league for college players from all over the country. Mauldin’s team, the Casper Horseheads, desperately needed pitchers after the coaches were fired, causing some of his teammates to leave.
Ellis, who had just angrily left Gulf Coast College over disagreements with head coach Mike Kandler, was without a school — and desperate. Email after email to college coaches around the nation were going unanswered and Ellis was running out of time to find another program for his sophomore year.
Mauldin’s phone call was a lifeline. This was his last chance.
“I preferred to go to a school in the Southeast but I thought maybe I’d find someone out there and they might like me,” Ellis said. “At that point I just wanted to play somewhere.”
NIGHTMARE IN PANAMA CITY
Nothing went according to plan in Ellis’ first year in college. He originally signed on to play Division I ball at South Carolina Upstate out of high school but left after a semester because he “wasn’t really feeling it.”
So Ellis moved onto Gulf Coast College, a JUCO, for the spring right as baseball season was about to start. With the team’s pitching rotation already set in stone, Ellis was sent to the bullpen to be a middle reliever.
His freshman season couldn’t have gone much worse. He only made six appearances but gave up 25 hits in 13.1 innings with a 12.15 ERA.
On top of that, while pitching in a game against Chattahoochee Valley Community College on March 8, Ellis felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. The next day he couldn’t even move his arm in a circle.
Something was wrong.
It turned out to be a Level II tear in his labrum, which sidelined him for three months. Because the injury occurred right before the midway point of the season, Ellis was awarded a medical redshirt.
But that was about the only positive to come out of Gulf Coast. Ellis and Kandler weren’t seeing eye to eye throughout the spring, and the injury only magnified it.
When the season was finally over, Ellis felt unwanted. He was called “soft” and told he was “too afraid to compete” following his injury.
And Ellis was finally over it.
“I was kind of like, ‘screw you. I’m Tyson Ellis. I’ll find somewhere to go. I don’t need this place.’”
BEST SUMMER OF HIS LIFE
Ellis reached out to dozens of coaches in the summer of 2018 but wasn’t getting many bites. The only real opportunity he received was a tryout for Wabash Valley College in Illinois.
Finally, a school had interest, so Ellis hopped in his car, drove all the way to Mount Carmel and threw a bullpen session for them.
Maybe this was finally it.
“They seemed excited,” Ellis said. “I was like, ‘awesome.’”
But Ellis never heard from Wabash Valley again.
That’s when Mauldin called.
Within a week of receiving Mauldin’s phone call, Ellis was on a plane to Casper, Wyoming. He wasn’t going to let doubt creep in — he still believed he could be a collegiate pitcher and he was going to prove it for the Horseheads.
No matter how many colleges ignored him, Ellis wasn’t giving up.
“Tyson is a really lighthearted guy and the way he thinks is just exemplary,” Mauldin said. “Some coaches wouldn’t call him back and he would just kind of laugh it off. The way he would think is, ‘I know I’m a good ball player.’ And we would tell him that and he knows it. He would just be like, ‘Look, if it didn’t work out with this coach then I know that isn’t the place for me.’ That’s just kind of how he is.”
The biggest issue on the mound for Ellis at Gulf Coast was pretty simple — he couldn’t throw strikes. He even admits he was too scared to because he didn’t want to get “crushed” by opposing hitters.
Fear of the long ball led to Ellis trying to fool hitters too often with his slider and changeup, which resulted in 15 walks in those 13.1 innings. But when he went to pitch in the Expedition League, he changed his approach and let loose.
His solution? Fastballs. Ellis told himself this was his last chance and he knew he had to pitch well if he was going to find a college to play for in 2019.
“I said if I was going to fail, I am going to throw the ball right down the middle and people are going to hit home runs,” Ellis said. “I wasn’t going to walk people. I wasn’t going to be afraid to throw it to them. So I started ripping fastballs as hard as I could down the middle and that was my goal.”
It worked.
Playing in the Expedition League showed him not only was he good enough, but hitters weren’t going to send the ball over the fence every at-bat. In fact, they struggled to get a hit off of him instead.
“I think that summer in Wyoming was such a confidence boost for him,” Mauldin said.
“He said it was the best summer of his life. He had so much fun playing.”
SCHOOL’S BACK IN SESSION
The best summer of Ellis’ life ended with his big break.
Spring Hill College assistant coach Corey Thompson, who was coaching a team from North Dakota that summer, saw Ellis in action a few times and was impressed. Thompson was also good friends with PSC pitching coach Karsten Whitson, and Hill told him Ellis was still looking for a school.
PSC’s pitching staff was mostly set by then, but when a friend calls to tell you about a talented pitcher, you listen. So Whitson did.
“It doesn’t really happen that often where you add a guy that late in the summer,” Whitson said. “We weren’t really looking for a guy and then Tyson just kind of came available and he fit everything we were looking for academically, personality wise — no one really had anything bad to say about — so we said, ‘hey, let’s give this kid a chance and see what he can do.’”
Whitson took Hill’s recommendation and, without even seeing Ellis throw, offered him an opportunity. At that point in the year, PSC had no more scholarships to offer, but Whitson gave Ellis a chance to walk on to the team.
Ellis didn’t hesitate. He said yes and he was going to make the most of a new opportunity.
Funny thing is, PSC was one of the schools he reached out earlier that summer and never heard back from. Between Kandler giving up on him and coaches ignoring him, Ellis had plenty of motivation to prove everybody wrong at PSC, including its own coaches.
Whitson was about to find out just how lucky he was, too.
Ellis was a different pitcher in his redshirt freshman season for PSC and his built-up anger from being doubted for so long fueled him all year. He was close to untouchable to start the campaign, throwing 23.1 scoreless innings out of the bullpen from January until the middle of March.
“He showed some flashes in the fall where we said he could have a chance to really be a backend guy for us — a closer type — and then in the spring he came right out of the shoot and put up zeroes,” Whitson said. “He had quality outings back-to-back and when you get 10 to 12 games in and a guy hasn’t given up a run yet, that’s when you start to realize this guy has a chance to be special.”
It wasn’t until March 16 when his Gulf Coast State College finally tagged him for a run. But Ellis stayed in a groove, finishing the year with 57 strikeouts in 49.1 innings that included six saves.
His ERA also dropped all the way to 2.74 in 20 appearances and he walked just 24.
Ellis was no longer afraid. He was dominant.
“I got better because I got pissed off,” Ellis said. “I got pissed off at (Kandler) for not wanting me anymore, I got pissed off at college coaches not thinking I was good enough and I just got pissed off at everyone. I said, ‘If they think I’m this bad then I’m going to prove to them that I’m not. I’m going to prove to them that they’re missing out.’ They could have had me and now they don’t.”
INTEREST RATES RISING
Major League Baseball scouts were on hand to watch PSC’s opening weekend series against Bryant & Stratton College. They were there to see Chad Bryant and Jake Sweeney, who went on to get drafted by the Atlanta Braves and Pittsburgh Pirates.
But they also caught a glimpse of Ellis, who entered the second game of the series in relief. He topped out at 93 miles per hour that night — the fastest he had ever thrown — and threw 3.1 scoreless with five strikeouts and only two hits in a 7-4 win.
Ellis started receiving college interest after that. Word had gotten out about him that night and UAB came calling. Then Indiana State. Then Gardner-Webb.
But Ellis was dreaming bigger.
He had pitched at Troy’s field during fall ball and was interested in playing for the Trojans. While attending PSC, Ellis also became good friends with fellow pitcher DJ Wilkinson, who signed with Troy in the fall.
Wilkinson knew Ellis wanted to transfer to a Division I school. He also knew Troy was looking for another pitcher. It seemed like the perfect match.
Eventually, Wilkinson spoke to Troy assistant coach Shane Gierke, who had recruited him. Gierke relayed the word to the rest of his staff and pitching coach Matt Hancock was out to Pensacola to watch Ellis in action, just in time for the conference opener against Northwest Florida.
Riding his scoreless inning streak, Ellis struck out five, surrendered zero hits and picked up his third save of the season in a 4-1 win.
“Whenever he’d come in I usually knew the door was shut and we were going to get out of the inning,” Wilkinson said. “Whether he came in after me and it was my runners on base or someone else’s, I knew he was about the shut door.”
Not only was Troy calling after that game but so were South Alabama, Jacksonville University and Jacksonville State. Hancock loved what he saw and having Wilkinson on board to help recruit Ellis didn’t hurt.
“He really liked him and he liked how he pitched and his energy and his competitiveness on the mound,” Wilkinson said.
The rest is history.
It took just one visit to Troy for Ellis to make up his mind. Hancock sold him on the team’s pitching program and weightlifting regimen and Ellis could just picture himself one day throwing at Riddle-Pace Field.
Now the pitcher who struggled to throw strikes just over a year ago is ready to ace his next test. He feels there’s no longer any challenge he can’t overcome.
Ellis is eager to prove himself — again — at another level. And he doesn’t expect it to be his last stop.
“I just need to be me, come in and don’t be afraid to compete with guys,” Ellis said. “Just because it’s Division I now doesn’t mean my stuff won’t play. That’s the biggest thing that I have in my mindset. Just because I’m going against better guys doesn’t mean I’m not good now. I’m still good so I want to go in, be an All-American and I want to get drafted. And then I want to play professional baseball.”