SUNY Fredonia grad Chris Messina recently completed his third season as the Strength & Conditioning Coach with the Class AA Portland Sea Dogs, the Boston Red Sox's Eastern League affiliate.
Messina was named 2018 Eastern League Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year. He has worked with the team's top prospects as well as some current major league players. His new assignment in 2019 is with Class AAA Pawtucket of the International League, one step closer to The Show.
Messina played baseball at Fredonia through the 2012 season and earned a degree in Exercise Science. He went on to graduate school at Salisbury University and worked at Texas Christian University before joining the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, which earned him a job in the Arizona Fall League during the 2016 season.
Messina described his in-season grind as "12-hour days, and a lot of bus rides." No stranger to work ethic, he was valedictorian at Dunkirk High School and graduated from Fredonia in three years. He credits his father, Dean and his grandfather for insisting he strive to do his best.
"My dad always pushed me to be doing something and doing better," Messina said. "If I got a 95 [on a test], he would say I could have gotten a 97... He saw potential in me and never settled for being okay. My grandfather was the same way."
His memories of Fredonia baseball include -- of course -- the conditioning. "Twenty-seven outs," said Messina. "I remember having to sprint on and off the field in my catchers gear at the end of practice!"
"When Chris was looking at coming to Fredonia to play baseball," said head coachÂ
Matt Palisin, "I remember one of my alums, Mario Muscarella, who was the Dunkirk jayvee coach at the time, raving about Chris's character and work ethic. Mario told me 'He'll run through a wall for you'. Coming from probably the most intense player I've coached, that spoke volumes about Chris. That not only applied to the on field -- but also in the classroom."
Messina has kept in touch with faculty at Fredonia. One of his professors, Dr. Todd Backes, asked him to do a class presentation last year, and he obliged. He found Fredonia to be as he remembered it: "Classes are small, and everybody knows everybody."
Now living in Arizona, Chris and his wife were guests of the parent Red Sox for Games 1 and 2 of the 2018 World Series. He will receive a World Series ring.
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