The championship trophy still sits proudly on Carleton Ravens baseball head coach Daylon Courchene’s dining room table, nearly three months after winning the national title.
“It’s a cool reminder,” Courchene said. “It was just a super proud moment, and even looking back on it now, it’s still a little surreal.”
On Oct. 19, the players poured out of the dugout, jumping up and down in excitement while spraying water in the air. They revelled in the moment of becoming Canadian University National Champions after defeating the Guelph Gryphons 7-4.
As he stepped out of the dugout himself, Courchene recalls joining in on the celebrations with an inexplicable sense of pride.
“It was a perfect storm of how dedicated the guys are, how dedicated the coaching staff is — everything clicked at the right time,” he said.
Describing the win as one of his proudest moments, the national title is Courchene’s latest accolade on his coaching resume. At just 28 years old, he said he’s letting himself step back and reflect on his first decade as a baseball coach.
“I think I’ve parlayed it into a pretty good 10 years,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed every step of the way.”
During peak baseball season, Courchene is on the diamond almost every day of the week. Since falling in love with the sport at just four years old, he can’t imagine life any other way.
Courchene took on his first coaching role at 18 years old, as an assistant coach with the under-14 Ottawa Knights. While he said he had a lot to learn during his transition from player to coach, he quickly found a passion for working with players on the developmental side.
“I was a leader when I played. Maybe not a super vocal leader, but I led by example,” Courchene said. “I transitioned that to trying to understand the game more on an analytical level and understanding … how to work with different people.”
Courchene played with the Ravens during his undergrad, then stepped in as interim head coach in 2019 after graduating from Carleton.
While the team didn’t see many regular-season wins during Courchene’s first year at the helm, that changed come playoffs. The 16th-seed Ravens went on a Cinderella-story run to the Ontario University Athletics finals, offering Courchene his first taste of success as a head coach.
“That was such a fun tournament that we still talk about today,” Courchene said. “It was really the beginning of it all for me as a coach.”
Players who have worked with Courchene are quick to describe him as a “player-first coach” — one who emphasizes technical and personal development, both on and off the field.
“He’s improved the way I see the game,” said Colby Schroeder, an infielder on the Carleton Ravens baseball team.
“Baseball is a pretty emotional sport, and Daylon is pretty good at letting people know how to focus on what you can control and let go of what you can’t.”
Courchene jokes that coaching and emotional support duties go hand-in-hand, as he strives to help players gain confidence and learn how to handle their emotions.
“That aspect of coaching is something I enjoy,” he said. “Being there for somebody, to be able to be a sounding board if they need it. Being that someone that they can vent to if they’re frustrated.
“I want to make sure that it’s something that I’m always available for with anybody that I coach across the board.”
Schroeder joined the Ravens baseball team in 2020 after playing college baseball in the U.S. He returned to a team full of newcomers, with only a few of the players knowing each other going into the season. Schroeder said he instantly noticed Courchene’s innate ability to build team camaraderie from the first practice.
Initiating plenty of team dinners and extra development sessions, Courchene spent the next four years fostering a team chemistry worthy of a national title.
“He’s the glue that holds us all together,” Schroeder said.
Courchene’s drive to build community extends beyond team dynamics. As a member of the Moose Cree First Nation, Courchene runs weekend-long baseball camps each summer on the Moose Factory reserve, located more than 1,000 kilometres north of Ottawa.
As an isolated community where Courchene said at-risk behaviour is more prevalent among youth, he highlighted the importance of offering a variety of activities for youth to engage in.
“It also shows there’s other sports out there that … you can play at the next level,” Courchene said. “You could go to school and be able to play these sports. I think that message up there especially is super important.”
Each year, Courchene invites players from the Ottawa Knights team to help run the camps on the reserve, allowing them to experience baseball in a whole new environment.
“It’s a culture shock when we bring them up there,” Courchene said. “It’s not the city anymore, there’s not a Tim Horton’s down the street or other things that they grew up with as a norm.”
Nathaniel Steffler, who has played on Courchene’s Ottawa Knights team for the last three years, has been to Moose Factory twice to assist with the camps. He said being on the reserve has been one of the most memorable experiences of his life.
Despite initially feeling out of place on the reserve, Steffler said Courchene went out of his way to introduce him to people, initiating connections and making him feel welcome.
“The biggest thing he does is bring different communities together,” Steffler said. “It’s as simple as bringing something he’s learned and the people he’s met together.”
Around 50 kids attended the baseball camp this past summer, and Courchene said numbers continue to increase every year. As popularity for baseball grows on the reserve, Steffler said he’s noticed the community evolving along with it.
“Now every night, they play softball and baseball on their softball diamond up there, which they never would have been doing before,” Steffler said.
Courchene said one of his proudest moments as a coach is seeing the players pass their baseball knowledge to the kids participating in the camps. Running the camps is the first introduction into the coaching world for many of the 15 and 16-year-old Ottawa players.
“It’s a super proud moment,” Courchene said. “When we’re there, I see them still working hard in such a different scenario they’re not used to.”
Courchene hopes his love of the game will inspire his players to consider taking on their own coaching roles, as he did himself 10 years ago.
“It’s a cool feeling when people that you’ve coached felt that they had so much fun [playing baseball] that they want to come back and give that opportunity to the kids as well,” he said.
Watching his players find success inside and outside of baseball is a feeling Courchene said he finds hard to describe — it’s one that fuels him to keep spending every day on a baseball diamond for the indefinite future.
“That’s the part that keeps me going, is seeing those successes of the players I get to coach,” he said. “Until that feeling goes away, I don’t know if I’d be able to stop coaching.”
Featured photo by Dan Inglis
