‘The Lives You Touch, The Impact You Have’

Hundreds Attend Vigil For Late RC Baseball Coach

Travis Roadcap was “a player’s coach,” a teacher and a friend to many. He loved baseball. Those were some of the themes of the vigil that hundreds of players, coaches, parents, administrators and friends attended on Saturday night at the Rockbridge County High School baseball field.

Roadcap, who was the head RC baseball coach for the last seven years, died on Thursday night at his home at age 34. As this newspaper went to press Tuesday, a cause of death had not been disclosed.

On Friday morning, the RC athletic department announced Roadcap’s death on its Facebook page. “Coach Roadcap was far more than a coach,” the department said. “He was a dedicated teacher, a mentor, a leader and a friend to countless students, athletes, colleagues and families. His passion for education, commitment to his players, and positive impact on our school community will never be forgotten. Our thoughts and heartfelt prayers are with the Roadcap family, the baseball program and everyone whose lives were touched by Travis. His legacy will live on through the many people he inspired. He will be deeply missed and forever remembered.”

Roadcap’s players quickly organized the vigil and got the word out, with RC athletic department assistant Travis Rogers helping out. At the vigil, after a prayer with candles, Roadcap’s favorite songs were played, people chatted and told stories, and Pure Eats owner Kasey Potter and her staff served many of Roadcap’s favorite foods. People wrote notes on a big board for Roadcap. On the pitcher’s mound was Roadcap’s RC jersey, No. 8, along with flowers.

Rogers said the vigil was organized as “a chance to be together.” For several nights after Roadcap’s death, the new stadium lights, which were installed earlier this year, were left on.

Reflecting on his time working with Roadcap and what he meant to the Wildcats, Rogers said, “As soon as he arrived at Rockbridge, I kind of took over the big brother role. I watched him grow as a coach and a teacher. I saw how much the kids enjoyed working with him. It was very refreshing.”

The son of Tommy Jr. and Evelyn Waybright, Roadcap grew up in Harrisonburg and played football, baseball, ran sprints and jumped for the indoor track and field team at Harrisonburg High School, from which he graduated in 2010. He went on to play football, as a defensive back, at Bridgewater College for head coach Mike Clark. Roadcap graduated from Bridgewater in 2014, and Clark got him in touch with then-RC head baseball coach Justin Wenger. Roadcap served as an assistant coach for five years before becoming the head coach at age 27, after Wenger stepped down in 2019.

Wenger, who was at the vigil on Saturday night, recalled when Roadcap asked him if he had a good chance to be head coach. In response, Wenger asked, “What do you plan on doing as head coach?”

“He goes, ‘For the most part, exactly what you’ve been doing, just in my way,’” recalled Wenger. “As an outgoing coach, that’s kind of the thing you hope for.” The next day, Wenger spoke with then-RC athletic director Rick Lollis, recommending Roadcap as the new head coach.

Wenger, who would serve as a volunteer assistant coach during part of Roadcap’s tenure as head coach, said Roadcap’s coaching career turned out well.

The Wildcats went 4-16 overall this spring and 2-14 in their first year in the Shenandoah District, but they lost some close games. While the winning percentage during his tenure may not have been that high – they were 42-73 over six seasons – Roadcap’s impact on his players went well beyond the win-loss column. Those who knew him best say he touched the lives of his players in profound, positive ways.

‘A Player’s Coach’

Two of Roadcap’s former players, who were both at the vigil, played for the Wildcats when Roadcap was an assistant coach and then a head coach.

“I’d never seen someone so excited to be a head coach. I was excited for him, even as a young kid,” said Keswick Owens, a 2022 RC graduate who had Roadcap as his head coach his junior and senior years.

Garret Huffman, a 2021 RC graduate, was a senior during Roadcap’s first season as head coach, after the 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He was just awesome,” said Huffman of Roadcap. “I think the biggest thing with him was, more than a coach, he was also a great friend, too. I remember there were so many times after practice, there would be a group of us just staying after practice. We probably talked for like an hour, it seemed like, whether it was baseball or anything not related to baseball. We just would talk afterwards. Those were the best memories, I feel like, not even as a coach but just as someone to talk to.”

After high school, Huffman went on to become a third baseman for the baseball team at Division II school King University in Tennessee, and Roadcap kept in touch with him, as he did with many of his players. “He used to text me all the time,” said Huffman, who is about to start his second year as the Wildcats’ head golf coach. “I remember when I hit my first home run, he texted me a video recording of it. The same thing with my first hit. He always stayed in touch. It was awesome. It was cool to know that he was watching.”

In addition to coaching baseball, Roadcap served as an assistant football coach for the Wildcats for several years, as the special teams coordinator and working with defensive backs. Outside of coaching, he taught physical education, health and strength training, with many of his players taking his strength training classes.

Owens recalled how Roadcap helped him unwind after a busy day at school. “After a long day of biology or something, he’d let me come escape into his classroom and just hang out and die down,” said Owens.

Roadcap was “a player’s coach,” Owens said. “I think the thing that kept people coming to practice every day was the friendship he built with you off of the field. And on top of that, you have coaches who love the sport, but he was passionate about the opportunity he had to be a head baseball coach. We brought it every day for him because of the passion he brought to the table.”

Learning To Lead

The Wildcats’ assistant baseball coaches who worked with Roadcap commented on how he grew and learned to lead as a coach.

Wenger recalled when, after RC pitching coach Brad Hastings moved away, Roadcap asked Wenger early in the season if he could call an inning. “I think I’ve pretty much got the call card memorized,” said Roadcap. The Wildcats were up by eight runs, and Wenger said to go ahead, and it was a good inning. Then Wenger asked if Roadcap wanted to call the next one, and Roadcap said, “Yeah, yeah, that was cool.”

“What I don’t think he expected was that there wasn’t another word spoken,” said Wenger. “I didn’t call a pitch the rest of the season, and I never said anything to him about it.”

“He was not afraid to try something new,” said RC assistant coach Nick Perlozzo, who coached with Roadcap for the last nine years.

One of Perlozzo’s favorite stories was when the Wildcats were playing Fort Defiance years ago, and RC’s pitcher was one strike away from ending the game and giving RC a 2-1 win. Confident the game was over, Roadcap walked up to Perlozzo and handed him the call card and then walked away. “Two seconds later, pop, strike three,” said Perlozzo. “That was the end of the game.”

Wenger noted that Roadcap “was definitely willing and wanted to learn the game when he was a younger coach.”

Perlozzo agreed. “All he did all day long during the season was study lineups and change lineups,” he said.

Both Wenger and Perlozzo were grateful and impressed by such a large turnout for the vigil. “I figured there’d be a lot of people here tonight,” said Perlozzo. “I don’t think I thought it’d be this many. This is a great turnout for an awful thing.”

“It’s not just a testament to Cappy [Roadcap], but I think it’s a testament to teachers in general, teachers and coaches, the lives you touch, the impact you have,” said Wenger.

Jamie Hostetter, who has been an assistant coach for Wenger for the last five years, said Roadcap “was good with the kids.” Hostetter noted that Roadcap could be hard on his players, but then he would make up with them. “They didn’t take it to heart,” he said.

“A bunch of former players always stayed in contact with him,” added Hostetter. “They still come to the games.”

Outside of coaching together, Hostetter enjoyed hanging out and fishing with Roadcap.

Also at the vigil was Tom Dowdell, the Wildcats’ head junior varsity baseball coach. Dowdell was asked to coach the JV team four years ago. Originally, Roadcap had asked Dowdell’s son, Red, if he wanted to coach, but Red was running the local gym Rockbridge Barbell, and suggested his dad.

“I came by the field,” recalled Tom. “We talked. He didn’t know me from a hill of beans, other than I was Red’s dad.” Tom said Roadcap wanted to see if their philosophies matched, and they did.

“Travis was interested in character development, in teaching these young men how to win gracefully, how to lose gracefully, how to be better as citizens,” said Tom. “Winning, that was a goal, but that wasn’t the principle. It was, take care of your teammates, respect your teammates, respect your opponents, respect the umpires. That’s my philosophy.”

“We had long discussions about, when the team goes on a losing streak, how you continue to keep [the players] up and not falling into that ‘woe is me’ thing, but keep going out there and giving 110 percent,” added Tom. “Travis did that, and he made it fun. I thank him for restoring the love of the game in me. I had lost a little bit of it, and he helped me get it back.”

More Memories Shared

In addition to coaches and players, friends paid tribute to Roadcap.

Shannon Bryan, who had a close relationship with Roadcap for the last six years and is also a physical education teacher at RC and the Wildcats’ head cheerleading coach, said Roadcap “was definitely relatable with his students. He joked around with them all the time. He always had that sarcastic attitude.”

“A lot of students opened up to him,” added Bryan. “He was the one who helped everyone along the way. He would go out of his way to bring students food when they needed it.”

Bryan said Roadcap enjoyed playing games with the students, and she and he would team up and play pickleball and cornhole, and he played baseball with her son. Their first connection was that they were both coaches. “We had each other’s back,” said Bryan. “Before a game, he’d ask me what the lineup would be. After every cheerleading competition, he’d come to me and say, ‘Let me see the video.’ And we’d figure out what we could do better.”

“He was overall a great guy to have around,” said Bryan. “I think people are mostly gonna miss his heart and his personality. If anyone was down, he would cheer them up.”

Another good friend to Roadcap was Kasey Potter, who kept track of stats on the Gamechanger app and has two sons, Drew and Chase, who played for Roadcap. Drew is about to start his sophomore year playing baseball for Division III school Gettysburg College, while Chase is a rising RC senior.

On Friday, Potter posted on Facebook, “Some people leave footprints. Others leave a ball field full of memories. Around here, everybody knew Roadcap. He loved Rockbridge, loved the game of baseball, and loved those kids like they were his own. He left his mark on so many lives, and this community will never be the same. Travis was my best friend. He was family. We argued like siblings, laughed until we couldn’t breathe, and never stayed mad for long. He loved my boys like they were his own, and they always knew they had someone in their corner because of him. Now I’m standing here trying to figure out how to say goodbye to someone I never imagined living without.”

Zack Rhodenizer, who was an assistant football coach with Roadcap before becoming the head coach last year, posted on Facebook that Roadcap “was a great coach, and I was fortunate to call him a friend. He was invested in his players. He planned with incredible attention to detail. He was loyal, knowledgeable, and selfless. His impact on our community and on countless kids is immeasurable, and so is the loss we all feel. But beyond all of that, he was simply someone I enjoyed being around. “