For baseball Coach Elvis Dominguez, waking up everyday and walking into his office in Renaissance Coliseum is, simply put, a blessing.
At age eight, Dominguez and his family left communist Cuba on one of the last “freedom flights” and made their way to the United States. Dominguez spoke of moments when they remained hungry and sleepless some nights in Cuba.
But it was through his own perseverance and guidance from family and former Major League Baseball executive Jim Hendry, who he said acted as a second father to him, that brought him to Peoria to try to bring back a NCAA championship to the Hilltop.
A feat that has not been accomplished since 1968.
Dominguez has been at the Division I level for 29 years, so after playing at and graduating from Creighton University, serving as an assistant for seven years and then coaching at Eastern Kentucky University, coming to Bradley and the Missouri Valley Conference was the perfect move.
“When I was hired here [at Bradley], it was sort of coming home for me,” Dominguez said. “After spending so many years playing and starting off coaching [in the Valley], I always wanted to be back in this great conference.”
Dominguez’s Cuban upbringing and journey to the U.S. helped him become the coach he is today, he said.
“I always tell people ‘to take every opportunity you can’ because of the way I was brought up,” Dominguez said. “[In Cuba] you are told when to eat and when to sleep, and then I came here [to the U.S.] and you have all this freedom.”
With the tough childhood Dominguez had, he said he wants to make sure that everyone he works with, from his coaches and administrators to his players and their families, takes every opportunity that is presented to them.
But as Dominguez displayed a “thank you” letter from a family that was helped by the members of this year’s baseball team after the tornado hit central Illinois, he mentioned the concept of giving back that he wants his players to understand as a building block in their lives.
“I try to instill in my players to be thankful for what they have every day,” Dominguez said. “As a team we try to do as much philanthropic work in the community as possible.”
Dominguez said he also derived strength as a coach from the memory of former Bradley baseball player Phil Kaiser, who died in 2010 following what was later found out to be an undiagnosed heart condition.
Kaiser left his mark on the baseball program, specifically on Dominguez he said, who recruited Kaiser to come play for him at Eastern Kentucky.
“Phil was a special young man, he was always the first one to lend a helping hand, even if Phil didn’t know you,” Dominguez said.
Kaiser’s memory is still actively on the mind of Dominguez and his players, which he said includes Kaiser’s glove and a picture in his office along with Kaiser’s jersey framed in the Braves’ locker room. But Dominguez noted that it is the current seniors and the rest of the players that continue his legacy.
“We will continue to honor Phil, and hopefully these seniors and the guys in the locker room will continue to pass on his memory,” he said.
Even though the Braves had the third worst record in program history a year ago and Dominguez received a letter from a handful of baseball alumni calling for his job, he said he feels optimistic that this year’s team is on the upswing; however, the pressure of coaching will always be there.
“I feel the pressure every day, not from the job aspect, but from the fact that I am overseeing 35 players and every aspect of this program,” Dominguez said. “But this year’s squad is resilient and staying healthy, so we are better than we are a year ago.”
As mentioned by most of the Bradley coaches so far this year, there is plenty of “unfinished business” to do in each of their respective programs. Dominguez is no different and said he wants to be the one to finish the job here on the Hilltop for as long as administrators let him.
“We have a lot of unfinished business,” Dominguez said. “We still haven’t won the conference since 1968, and that drives me every day. So I hope to be here as long as I can.” the Hilltop for as long as administrators let him.
