Former BVU Baseball Player Helps Plan UVA Title Celebration
Jason Bauman '90 played a major role in the events surrounding the University of Virginia's first national championship in men’s basketball. He is the associate athletic director in charge of facilities and game operations at UVA.
Jason Bauman '90 kept two eyes on the NCAA Division I Men’s National Basketball Title this spring in Minneapolis. While doing so, he kept two eyes on Charlottesville, Va., where he helped make plans for a welcome-home ceremony for the Virginia Cavaliers.
“The whole experience was fabulous,” says Bauman, who admitted to getting just a couple hours of sleep the night the University of Virginia won its first national championship in men’s basketball by virtue of its 85-77 victory over Texas Tech in an overtime classic at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Bauman had a seat at the table, so to speak, for the Final Four as he serves as associate athletic director in charge of facilities and game operations at UVA.
“Once we made the championship game, after the victory over Auburn in the Final Four, things moved quickly to plan events back home in Charlottesville,” says Bauman. “We were in meetings throughout the day on Sunday and then most of the day on Monday leading up to the game that night.”
Nearly 25,000 fans turned out to welcome the victors home in a ceremony at Scott Stadium on Saturday, April 13. Bauman’s staff helped prepare the site for the spectators and helped in the plan that would see the team transported from the basketball arena to the stadium that day.
The event culminated a 13-month odyssey for the basketball team, which, in 2018, became the first No. 1-seed to lose to a No. 16-seed when the University of Maryland-Baltimore County stunned Coach Tony Bennett’s club, 74-54. Bennett showed his character in the wake of that upset, letting reporters know that his team was simply beaten by a better squad on that historic day. He made no excuses and tried to assure UVA fans that the sun would rise the following day.
“Those comments were Tony Bennett to the core,” says Bauman, who began following Bennett as a fan during Bennett’s playing days at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. “I remember how crushed I felt after our loss last year. And then I watched him and couldn’t help but think of how small I was being. I learned from Coach Bennett in how he utilized that adversity to challenge himself to be better.”
“My dream was to work in collegiate athletics at some point, but I had not even considered getting a master’s in the field.”
Jason Bauman
Ultimately, that challenge resulted in a national championship. Bauman, a UVA staff member since 1997, says his favorite memory of the title contest involves hugging his wife, Kelly, moments after the clock ran out, triggering an on-court celebration featuring hugs, tears, and, eventually, cutting down the nets.
“I will never forget being there and being there with Kelly made it very special,” says Bauman. “I kept thinking how happy I was for Tony and for our team. They were so resilient.”
Bauman, a native of Allison, was a two-time All-Iowa Conference player for the Beavers prior to his graduation in 1990. He credits Mark Peterson, his baseball coach at BVU, in directing him on his career path. It came during some conversations in Bauman’s junior year.
“I was a junior when Coach Peterson talked to me about pursuing a master’s degree in sports management,” says Bauman. “My dream was to work in collegiate athletics at some point, but I had not even considered getting a master’s in the field.”
Following the advice of Peterson, Bauman earned a position as a graduate assistant at Western Illinois University. He earned his master’s and then landed a position with the University of Kentucky in the fall of 1991. His work in facilities and event management for the athletics department put Bauman in close contact with the men’s basketball program. Bauman attended his first Final Four in 1993, watching as the Wildcats lost in overtime to the “Fab Five” of Michigan.
Kentucky won the championship in 1996. One year later, Bauman signed on with the athletic department serving the University of Virginia. He’s been there ever since and has joined in the work as UVA built or expanded facilities for just about every sport student-athletes enjoy on the campus in Charlottesville, Va.
Bauman, now associate athletic director in charge of facilities and game operations, has witnessed national championships earned by the Cavaliers in men’s soccer, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, men’s tennis, women’s rowing, baseball, and, now, men’s basketball.
He and Kelly have also been blessed to watch their daughters, Taylor and Brooke, do what their dad did, compete in athletics on the small-college level, in volleyball and soccer, respectively.
As Bauman reflects on this national-title ride at UVA, he can’t help but recall how his experience as a student-athlete helped shape him. He remains in contact with a few of his former Beaver teammates and Peterson, who now resides in Arkansas.
“I remember walking over to Siebens Fieldhouse when I was a freshman in March 1987 and finding my name on a sheet the coaches posted, a sheet that listed the players going on the spring break trip,” he says.
He also remembers singling in his first at-bat as a Beaver. He’d like to forget what happened one minute later. “I got my first hit in my first at-bat,” he says with a laugh, “and then I got picked-off first base!”
The lessons he learned then about showing up prepared and meeting a task with enthusiasm and rapport among teammates and coworkers continue to serve him as he approaches his third decade of work in intercollegiate athletics.
“The University of Virginia has been a great place for me and my family,” Bauman says. “I have been blessed to spend many years here, trying to take the lessons I learned in sports and in class at Buena Vista and applying them in my life. I shared with my daughters as they were being recruited to play in college-that playing a sport you love will be an experience that you will never forget and it will provide the opportunity to develop in ways outside of the classroom that may lead you to things you never thought were possible.
“But also knowing there is more to life than the games,” he concludes. “Sports aren’t the end-all, be-all, however, sports can act as a terrific teacher. I have tried to support our teams and, in my role, asking questions: ‘How can we be better? How can I impact the experience of the student-athletes to be the best it can be?’”