Having coached in the Chicago Cubs’ minor league system for eight years, Eugene Emeralds manager Gary Van Tol frequently sees players come and go. Van Tol gets to promote a lot of players, but also must release a fair number from the organization.
“Sometimes guys have been with you for just one or two seasons, and you have to tell them that their dreams are over,” Van Tol said. “That’s the worst part of the job.”
Van Tol has an open door policy with his Class-A short-season players, but doesn’t have much time to build relationships with them, especially due to language barriers.
“I try to really reach out to those players coming in from different countries,” Van Tol said. “I’ve been in those situations in countries where I didn’t know the language at all, so I have a feel of what they’re going through.”
Born in Alberta, Canada, Van Tol played three years for his country’s national team. His goal at the time was to play in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics by qualifying in the Pan American Games. When Canada didn’t qualify, Van Tol had to decide whether he wanted to play professionally or for his country.
He chose to play for Canada.
While traveling around the world with the team, Van Tol met a member of the Dutch national team who also managed a professional team called the Levi’s Neptunus (now known as the Curaçao Neptunus) in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He asked Van Tol, who was nearing the end of his playing career, to be a coach and player for his team after he finished with Canada.
“I ended up playing more than coaching, which was fine by me,” Van Tol said. “You never want to give that up.”
In 1993, Van Tol won the Holland Series and the European Cup in Madrid, Spain with Neptunus. During that time, he was also an assistant coach for Gonzaga University, where he had played college baseball and earned first team All-Pac-10 honors. Van Tol was under contract with Neptunus, so Gonzaga allowed him to leave midway through the college season to play overseas, where the season began in May.
After two years of helping younger players develop in the Netherlands, Van Tol retired from playing in 1993 and transitioned to coaching full time. He finished his master’s degree and started a family with his wife, Christine.
“If I wasn’t a year away from my master’s [degree], and Christine and I weren’t going out, I probably would have stayed over there because I loved it,” Van Tol said. “Having a Dutch name and grandparents who came over from Holland, I fit in pretty well over there even though I didn’t know the language.”
After he returned to the United States, Van Tol got his first head coaching job at Centralia College for the 1994-1995 season. Following a number of other coaching positions, he spent five years volunteering with the Cubs’ Class-A Boise Hawks. The Cubs rewarded him with the manager position for the 2013 season. Since then, he’s coached first-round draft picks Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber, who have been rookie revelations for Chicago this year.
Van Tol moved to Eugene this season when the Emeralds announced their new Player Development Contract with the Cubs after 14 seasons with the San Diego Padres. Van Tol coached first-round draft pick Ian Happ until he was called up to the Class-A South Bend Cubs in July. In 29 games for Eugene, Happ posted a .283/.408/.491 slash line.
Van Tol never made it to the big leagues, but said he is grateful to have played a long career internationally, gotten a college education and a chance to see the world.
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