BY STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com
Treyvin Moss was a toddler when he got his first taste of baseball training.
At 2, he had a bat in his hand and began to swing it as a right-hander. Father Randy — thinking of the advantages of seeing all those righty pitchers — quickly turned his son around.
“I made him left-handed,” says Randy Moss. “He didn’t have a choice.”
For much of Treyvin’s early life his dad was co-owner of Stars Baseball & Softball Academy near Fort Wayne, Ind.
Treyvin got all the baseball reps he wanted.
Two decades after first picking up that bat it’s still that way between father and son even though Treyvin is a 22-year-old redshirt junior at NCAA Division I Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Ky. – less than 10 miles south of downtown Cincinnati.
“I’ve never told T we couldn’t go hit,” says Randy Moss. “I’ve always made time for him.”
Treyvin has been known to take BP seven days a week, getting to the field before practice or a game and coming back afterward. Oftentimes dad is there.
“It’s cool because I get some swings in and he gets some swings in,” says Randy Moss. “I don’t miss a game. He’s my favorite player. I built him. He plays the game the right way. He makes my heart happy.
“He’s just a dream come true for me.”
The NKU Norse are the No. 6 seed in the six-team Horizon League tournament which begins today (May 25) at Wright State in Dayton, Ohio.
In 51 games (all starts), Treyvin Moss is hitting .292 (62-of-212) with three home runs, one triple, 15 doubles, 35 runs batted in and 34 runs scored. He is also 10-of-12 in stolen bases.
One of the highlights of 2022 for Moss was NKU’s three-game series at Mississippi State, home of the 2021 College World Series champions.
“It was a great experience,” says Moss, who got to see famed Dudy Noble Field and the baseball-crazed MSU fans as the Norse lead-off hitter and right fielder. “That’s a different level of baseball.”
“As a competitor you want to play against the best of the best. That’s what you prepare and train for.”
Fans heckled but they also showed hospitality by sharing hamburgers and brats from their cookout with the NKU players.
In 2021, Moss played in 47 games (46 starts) and hit .298 with 21 RBIs and 24 runs scored. In the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, he started all 11 games and hit .297 with two RBIs and six runs. He also drew nine walks and posted a .460 on-base percentage. He has received the Bill Aker Scholarship from a fund endowed by NKU’s first head baseball coach.
A middle infielder in high school and at the beginning of his college career, Moss has been used mostly in right field the past two seasons though he has played some second base when injuries cropped up on the team this spring.
“I enjoy the outfield a lot,” says Treyvin Moss, who stands just shy of 6-foot-3 and weighs about 185 pounds. “I’m better suited there with arm and speed. I love the infield and I always will.”
There’s not as much action in the outfield, but he needs to be ready when the time comes.
“(In the outfield) you need to focus a little more make sure you don’t take a pitch off,” says Treyvin Moss. “You’ve got to stay disciplined.”
Randy Moss knows that concept.
His junior season at Fort Wayne North Side High School (1982), the team had just one senior was predicted to finish low in conference play and went 10-0.
“It was all on incredible discipline and coaching,” says Randy Moss, who played for three head coaches at North Side — Myron Dickerson, Dale Doerffler and Jim Dyer — and was later junior varsity and head coach at his alma mater.
After graduating North Side in 1983, Moss went to Vincennes (Ind.) University and San Diego State University, where he learned from Aztecs coach Jim Dietz (who coached 30 years before giving the reins to Tony Gwynn).
Tearing his rotator cuff while chasing a ball in the gap while at SDSU, Randy underwent shoulder surgery and transferred to Huntington (Ind.) College (now Huntington University). For the Foresters, he hit .380 his last season and was a National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association All-America selection.
Randy Moss went on to play for the Portland (Ind.) Rockets, Fort Wayne Rangers and in the Men’s Senior Baseball League. He participated in the Roy Hobbs World Series for 35-and-over in Fort Myers, Fla. He was inducted into the National Semi-Pro Baseball Hall of Fame.
He is now director of player development and vice president of the Fort Wayne-based Summit City Sluggers (Mark DeLaGarza is founder and president) and owns Moss Painting & Home Improvement. He has about 15 young training clients and is also very involved with the Sluggers 12U team.
“I love teaching kids,” says Randy Moss, 57. “It’s so rewarding.”
Besides Treyvin, Randy has three daughters — Nicole (33), Alaya (16) and Tatum (8).
Treyvin Moss was born and raised in Fort Wayne and began playing for his father’s 10U Stars travel team at 8. From there he went to the Indiana Bulls, Indiana Nitro and Midwest Rangers.
He played at Lakewood Park Christian School in Auburn, Ind., as a freshman. He went to Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian and did not play as a sophomore. His last two prep seasons came at Fort Wayne Concordia Lutheran, where Matt Urban was the head coach.
“He was more of a relaxed positive guy,” says Moss of Urban. “But he really wanted to win.”
Moss hit .540 as a senior in 2018 and received a few junior college offers. He played that summer with the Midwest Rangers. It was while playing a tournament on the NKU campus that he attracted the attention of the Norse coaching staff.
He joined the team then got the news that he would be redshirted as a freshman.
“It was tough,” says Treyvin Moss. “I was upset about the redshirt for sure.
“But it’s outside my control. I kept working hard.
“I’ve loved every single bit about NKU.”
Long-time Norse assistant Dizzy Peyton took over as head coach in 2022.
“Diz is probably one of my favorite coaches that I’ve had in my life,” says Treyvin Moss. “He’s very down to earth. You can tell he enjoys being around the game and being around his kids.
“He has an open-door policy.”
Steve Dintaman, who was head coach at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, is an NKU assistant. Hunter Losekamp, who played and coached at Huntington U., is the volunteer assistant.
Moss, who has two years of college eligibility remaining and is a Business major on pace to graduate in the spring of 2023, is scheduled to play in the College Summer League at Grand Park in Westfield, Ind. The CSL’s third season is to begin June 5.
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