WINONA LAKE — Grace College’s baseball program will be welcoming a familiar face into its dugout when the team retakes the playing field in February. Tom Roy recently was named as an assistant coach by Head Coach Cam Screeton. However, Roy’s roots in the program go all the way back to 1970 when he served as the team’s pitching coach under then-head coach Chet Kammerer, the winningest coach in Grace’s history on the diamond.

At that point, Roy was around the same age of the players he was mentoring. Two years earlier, he was toiling in the minor league system of the San Francisco Giants, after signing a contract in 1967 as a 17-year-old pitcher out of Grafton High School in Wisconsin.

“Actually, I was probably better known as a basketball player than a pitcher back in those days,” said Roy. “At that time, you had to commit to one sport to play professionally, and I knew that I wanted to give baseball a shot.”

Unfortunately for Roy, 1968 was to be his only season as a professional baseball player, as injuries derailed his playing career. He then began to pursue a career in radio broadcasting, during which he met Pastor Paul Moehler, who told him of opportunities at Grace College, a place wholly unfamiliar to Roy. New to his Christian faith, Roy and his new wife, Carin, eventually packed their few belongings and made the trek to Winona Lake, a place they still call home nearly half a century later. “We were living on a shoestring when we came to Indiana,” Roy recalled.

Before Roy even graduated from Grace in 1974, Tippecanoe Valley High School contacted him, offering the opportunity to become the school’s first baseball coach, a position he held from 1974-76. Following that stint, Roy took his coaching talents to Huntington College for three years before returning to Grace College as its head baseball coach, leading the Lancer diamondmen from 1980-83. Most recently, he served as the team’s chaplain, traveling with them on their early season “southern trip.”

For the past 38 years, Roy has served as the leader of Unlimited Potential Inc., better known by its acronym UPI. The organization began in 1980 with the premise of using the game of baseball as a venue for sharing the word of God. Since UPI’s founding, Roy has ministered and shared the game he loves across the country and in 67 countries, including speaking engagements, clinics and other outreach activities. The staff of UPI consists of former professional baseball players who share Roy’s desire to share love of God through the game of baseball.

Roy also spends time in major league clubhouses, occasionally serving as chaplain prior to Sunday games with teams including the White Sox, Diamondbacks and Braves. “We reach into a culture that isn’t traditionally the easiest place for a ministry,” said Roy.

Two years ago, Roy handed the title of UPI’s CEO to Mickey Weston, a 15-year veteran of professional baseball and the chaplain for the Chicago White Sox. While Roy still holds the position of president and founder of the organization, the handoff allowed him to reduce his time on the road from 300 days to around 80-100 each year. The Roys have two adult children, Amy and Lindsay, as well as six grandchildren, all of whom live in the Warsaw area.

“We are unabashedly Christian, but we aren’t ‘in your face’ about it,” concluded Roy. “The mission of UPI, and for me personally, is ‘sharing the greatest story ever told through the greatest game ever played.’”

Winona Lake’s Tom Roy was signed by the San Francisco Giants organization in 1967.