Reflections:
Alyssa Nakken on her job as assistant coach with MLB’s Giants. AL notes, Page 6; NL on 8.
From the moment she donned the Giants’ orange and black uniform and stepped on a major league field, Alyssa Nakken’s legacy as the first woman to coach for an MLB team was secure.
Groundbreaker. Trailblazer. Barrier-buster.
They are platitudes Nakken accepts gracefully, and the impact of her appearance in an overwhelmingly male-dominated space is not lost on her.
As Nakken charts her path from slugging first baseman at Sacramento State to Oracle Park in San Francisco, she sees roadblocks placed in her own mind that prevented her from imagining her current reality was possible.
Now, at 30, she looks back and sees her 22-year-old self asking a question – What do I want to do with my life? – so many others pondered themselves and perhaps shirked.
She sees a recent college graduate and prosperous but unsatisfied young woman “having a very big breakdown” while having coffee with her mother in their hometown of Woodland, 83 miles but a world away from San Francisco.
As she exudes the pride of working for a coaching staff whose driving principle is admitting it doesn’t yet have all the answers, Nakken wants young women who might follow her to know it’s OK not to know.
“People getting out of college and trying to figure out, quote unquote, what their real job is going to be, I’m not too far removed from it,” Nakken said by phone. “I remember the sleepless nights of being down on myself for not being sure what I wanted to do. Whether you want to coach or be in a maledominated industry, this shows that if you continue to pursue careers or hobbies you like to do, and you put that passion behind it, doors will start to open.
“Now that women and girls will see it’s something they can do, hopefully it’s not this specific thing, but, ‘Oh yeah, even if I don’t see that specific career, I can go out and create it or create that network around me to be who I truly want to be.’ ”
Nakken’s existential crisis struck while she was a financial adviser, earnestly enjoying the interactions with those planning their financial future and gleaning from their experiences inspiration she’d apply to her own life.
Perhaps it was too inspiring: The tales of clients traveling the world and changing careers shattered her mindset of, “OK, I’m going to start now and this will be my career for the rest of my life. I thought that was what you had to do: Work 9 to 6, have weekends off.”
Instead, Edward Jones’ loss became the Giants’ gain.
Nakken had assumed her arc in athletics would take her from travel softball through college, and it did: She slugged eight home runs, produced a .934 OPS and earned conference scholarathlete of the year honors in her final year.
As she sought more from her life, a fact-finding trip to the University of San Francisco proved more inspiring beyond learning about its postgraduate sports management program. A meeting with longtime USF baseball coach Nino Giarratano and assistant Troy Nakamura reminded Nakken how much she missed athletics.
So she worked during the day and went to school at nights in her new home, grinding out an advanced degree and landing an internship with the Giants that led to a permanent position. When they hired Gabe Kapler as manager, part of his on-boarding process was a January conversation with Nakken, whose purview included various employment development initiatives.
By the end of the conversation, the dynamic shifted: Kapler wanted her on his staff.
It was a historic hire, less surprising given his well-documented penchant to zag while others zig. He’d already hired Kai Correa, a Division III player who did not play pro ball and had no big league dugout experience, as bench coach. Correa, 31, would be younger than several Giants’ veteran players. So, too, is hitting coach Donnie Ecker, 33, whose background is steeped in biomechanics and human movement research.
Kapler did retain longtime coach Ron Wotus from Bruce Bochy’s staff, adding grit to his new age thought lab. For Nakken, the hiring of first base and outfield coach Antoan Richardson might have been most notable. They work closely together on baserunning, outfield positioning based on that day’s opposing pitcher and how best to steal 90 extra feet on the basepaths when possible.
More notably, Nakken says Richardson excels at challenging her own processes. And she sees his unique ability to connect with players on a roster with players of all pedigrees, from veterans on the downside to recent waiver claims only now getting their first real shot.
The 19-person staff members are secure in the belief their leader will consider their input.
“There’s a lot of coaches on our staff very specialized in their craft, but if you look at their background, they have a real variety of experiences and professions,” Nakken says. “To bring that to the table allows us to ensure no stone goes unturned. And Kap with his leadership – he’s all about collaboration and leadership and different voices. And he’s stayed true to that.”
For Nakken, Kapler’s relatively open book was appealing.
“It was really Kap who opened my eyes that I could do something like this. I knew it was somebody I wanted to work alongside. He’s extremely transparent and constantly searching for a wide variety of perspectives.
“Now, I think it’s silly that I never thought I could do something like this.”
Even if the plug gets pulled, Nakken has already received a crash course in the grind of a season. Getting to the ballpark early, sneaking in a workout with fellow coaches before players arrive, meetings upon meetings upon meetings and then, oh, it’s game time.
Then, there are the indelible moments, like when Wotus gathered the staff in the catacombs of Dodger Stadium and opened a bottle of red wine for a quick toast to Kapler’s first win as the Giants’ manager, which was also a first for so many of the coaches.
“This is my job,” says Nakken, “and this is work, and I love going to work every single day.”
Not that she didn’t before. It’s just there was so much more to do that she did not realize.
Like surfing. The California native, who grew up in landlocked Yolo County, had never climbed on a board until she took a solo trip to Panama three years ago and got hooked. Now, she’ll sample the breaks at Ocean Beach, although the break “is a little big and gnarly for me, being a beginner,” so she’ll scamper south to Pacifica’s gentler conditions.
“It’s very symbolic to life, with the ups and downs,” she says. “You paddle so hard for a wave and sometimes you don’t get it. And if you’re crashing hard, sometimes it’s not so fun.
“And then, you get those moments where you’re riding the wave and it’s the best feeling in the world.”