ELKINS -- Jeff Eddleman has spent more than two decades as the baseball coach at Elkins.
Today he will start his 21st season, and he's been a coach at the school for 27 years. This season-opener will be a little more special for the 54-year-old coach, though. Just a year ago Eddleman didn't know if he'd ever sit in a dugout again.
The Prime 9
Northwest Arkansas’ top 9 baseball players in Class 5A and below
Player^School^Class^Notable
Keaton Austin^Farmington^Sr.^9-2, 1.90 ERA, 147 career Ks
Luke Bandy^Shiloh Christian^Jr.^.300 BA as switch-hitting SS. Also pitches
Cody Fields^Gravette^Sr.^.421 BA, 5 doubles, 16 RS, 12 RBIs
Logan Gragg^Prairie Grove^Jr.^2.10 ERA as pitcher/utility player
Gavin Heltemes^Prairie Grove^Jr.^Top returning pitcher with 2.60 ERA
Kord Offenbacker^Shiloh Christian^Sr.^.416 BA, 40 IP, 40 Ks, 3.37 ERA
Jake Reindl^Shiloh Christian^Sr.^.323 BA, 46 IP, 60 Ks, 1.30 ERA. Has signed with Arkansas
Mathew Stelting^Gravette^Sr.^.356BA, 1HR, 8 doubles, 13 RBIs
Tristan Trundle^Pea Ridge^Sr.^Top pitcher with 3.00 ERA
- Prime 9 players were nominated by their high school coaches.
"It was Feb. 28, and we were hosting a regional basketball tournament," Eddleman said last week. "It was a Thursday night and I'd gone home and got into bed around 11 o'clock. But I felt a weirdness in my chest, not so much pain, but tightness.
"I thought at first it might be indigestion because we'd had a hospitality room at the tournament and I thought maybe I ate to much."
When the issue persisted and worsened, Eddleman realized that it wasn't indigestion and the issue was his heart.
"Back in 2000, I had a stint put in, and I thought maybe something had gone wrong with that," he said. "So I laid there and it got worse and worse. So I literally picked up my phone, looked at it and said, 'I'm really about to call 911.' Because this is getting worse and I didn't want to take a chance."
When the ambulance arrived, he was checked out and it was determined he had suffered a heart attack. He was taken to Washington Regional Hospital in Fayetteville, where a test determined he had major blockage in the arteries of his heart. Eddleman was wheeled into surgery where doctors told him he would undergo a triple bypass operation. Instead, they performed a quintuple bypass.
Although that night was the first time he'd experience pain or tightness, Eddleman said looking back there were other signs, specifically fatigue.
"I'd get tired very easily," he said. "I'd go home and go to bed at 7 or 7:30, which was not normal for me."
Eddleman spent eight days in the hospital following the surgery, and another six weeks recovering, missing basically the entire baseball season. He did return to school very late in the season, but he was unable to coach the team.
"When I first came back, I went to a game over in West Fork, but I had to leave after the first game," he said. "My body, once it started to get dark, just shut down. I didn't have to see a clock or look outside. My body just automatically started shutting down at dark."
Even though the team was selected by Eddleman and practiced together for a couple of weeks before the heart attack, he said he felt like an outsider when he attended that game in West Fork.
"It was just awkward," he said. "All I could do was sit there because I couldn't do anything. I was like a spectator."
Elkins senior Devin Nielsen said the team was lost without their longtime coach, who has led the program to a pair of state championships in 2006 and 2009.
"When that happened, it was major," Nielsen, a pitcher and shortstop, said. "We were so used to Coach Eddleman and all the sudden he was gone. We just didn't work the same without him there."
Aaron Clark, the Elkins athletic director and a longtime assistant with Eddleman, was actually not going to assist with baseball last year, Eddleman said. But when Eddleman went down, Clark took over and coached the team through a trying time.
Eddleman jokes that the heart attack was even more ironic because he was probably in the best shape of his life when it happened.
"I'd gone to a diabetes specialist in the summer of 2013 and we changed my diet and cut out sugars and carbs," Eddleman said. "I bought a treadmill and lost about 20 pounds. I felt better than I had in a long time. I told someone, 'you watch. I'm in great shape bow and something will happen.' It did. I had a heart attack."
He's since lost another 10 pounds, but says he's never felt better. And he feels good about this year's team.
The Elks return a lot of talent this year, including top pitcher Curtis Williams and Nielsen.
"I hate to jinx myself, but we have a chance to be pretty good I think," Eddleman said. "We've got some good players coming back. I think we'll compete for the conference title."
Starting his third decade and now 30 pounds lighter, Eddleman is happy to back where he belongs, hitting fungoes and coaching third base.
Chip Souza can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAChip
Sports on 02/28/2015