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For their last meeting of January, the Rotary Club of Nicholasville met with guest speaker Coach Manny Cervantes of the Asbury baseball team. 

He brought along his wife and two Asbury baseball team members: Colton Perkins, an assistant catching coach, and senior Cam Weaver, a team captain his teammates voted in. 

Cervantes has lived in the area for over ten years. “It’s a blessing to be a part of the Wilmore and Jessamine County area.” 

After starting the meeting by giving out Asbury merchandise to Rotary Club members, Cervantes said his goals were to expand upon his background, show off the “incredible young men we have a part of the program,” and “increase your interest in Asbury baseball.”

Coach Cervantes grew up 20 miles southeast of Los Angeles with “parents who are literal examples of the American dream,” who immigrated from Mexico and became citizens over the years. “They would tell you that they are most proud that both their two kids and their five grandkids have all finished college or will be finishing college,” he said. 

After high school, Cervantes was drafted by the New York Mets but also got an offer to play at Oklahoma State University. He moved to the University of Kentucky to play for them in his third year. He graduated and played for the Seattle Mariners for three years. 

In a stroke of fate, 25 years later, Cervantes made it back to Kentucky and is now coaching at Asbury. 

Other Asbury baseball coaches include Pitching Coach Wynn Harris, Catching Coach Jeff Gray, Outfielder Assistant Coach Kaiden Zacharias, Pitchers & Infielders Assistant Coach Assistant Coach Jackson Cole, and 2024 Alumni and Graduate Assistant Colton Perkins. “I am so thankful for the guys I get to do this with,” Cervantes said.

He began talking about his Asbury team. 

The team’s grade point average (GPA) was 3.21, and 22 athletes received scholar status with a GPA of 3.5 or higher. 

However, grades and performance are only parts of the big picture for the Asbury Baseball team. 

“We want our guys to be excellent and pursue excellence on the field, in the classroom, and even more than that, as young men,” Cervantes said. 

For the last part of the meeting, Cervantes invited Perkins and Weaver to discuss their experience on the team. 

Perkins is from Richmond, Ky, and is currently pursuing an MBA. He is also part of the team’s staff. As a student, Perkins played infield, outfield, and shortstop. He will likely be going into insurance but will not turn down an offer to continue coaching. 

Weaver is a senior marketing major from Louisville and plays shortstop. He is also one of the captains. “He’s so well thought of on our team that they have elected them as our captain,” Cervantes said. Weaver will be going into real estate, which his father works in. 

On why the two chose to attend Asbury, Perkins said when he was going through the recruitment process for baseball, he decided he didn’t want to be in a classroom of 300 people. “I always was in a smaller school until my last two years of high school, so I…liked the smaller classrooms. When I came for a tour of Asbury, I noticed there were smaller classrooms, there were [going to] be more teacher interactions, and I was  [going to] be in an environment that actually cared for me and wanted me to go through four years and get my degree instead of just being a number in a classroom…When I was walking around the campus, it felt like home.” Weaver connected to Coach Cervantes through his high school buddy, who was recruited. Weaver and his family’s connection with the coach led him to commit to Asbury University.

When asked about their favorite team memories, Perkins spoke about a trip to Lynch, Kentucky, where the team assisted those who faced destruction after the 2022 floods. “Before the trip, it was right after the fall semester; the guys wanted to get home. The vibe was, ‘This will be a fun trip, but it’ll be four days, and we get to come back home,’ but that’s not the way it ended— everyone had a great time, and nobody wanted to come back, and I made connections with teammates who I didn’t connect with before.”

Weaver spoke about a winning game against a talented team with a score of 11-10 that ended with a baseball dogpile, a significant and emotional celebration in the sport. He also mentioned the team’s trip to Puerto Rico to “spread the gospel to (local) kids” as his favorite off-the-field memory.

Cervantes then asked the young men what made their team different from other teams. 

Perkins immediately responded, “I would say the main thing is how much our guys get along outside the field. There have been plenty of times when (Weaver) and I get home from practice, we talk at practice, and we get home and text each other, ‘Let’s play some video games,’ and we do that for a few hours. And that’s not personal to me and him; that’s the whole roster. It’s pretty rare that you’re part of a community that is like-minded and working towards a common goal.” Perkins also mentioned that the competition between teammates is not an issue on the Asbury team, “If me and him are both short stops, we probably wouldn’t spend a lot of time together, as we’re competing for a position. But the coach has told us a lot of stories about guys (on our team) who play the same position, hitting together, getting along, being best friends, and next month I’m going to a wedding for another catcher, who is probably my closest friend that I made in four years at Asbury, and we were taking each others’ play time away.”

Weaver added, “The culture of our team sticks out. At other schools, there can be cliques, and people can be selfish. I’m not saying that in every school…people are there for themselves. But when I was a freshman, being a freshman in college was tough… some of the older guys invited a bunch of my buddies and me in right away, and it was super comfortable from the start.”

Lastly, an audience member asked Perkins and Weaver, “How has playing baseball at Asbury helped with your faith?”

Weaver jumped in to answer, “That’s another reason why our culture is so good. A lot of other teams are based on having the best stats and getting the most wins, and while we care about that a lot, at the end of the day, those things fade away, and your love for Christ is eternal.” Although this exists throughout the school, Weaver said that many baseball players get even more of that through the Asbury baseball team, where they also host a team bible study. “It’s a cool mix where we can learn to love each other as brothers in Christ but also have fun on the field,”

Coach Cervantes said that the Asbury Baseball games are the “best sports deal in town,” and all games are free to attend. He invites everyone who is interested to watch the team play. 

All home games are broadcasted live stream on Asburysportsdigitalnetwork.com.

Home games in 2025:

February 19 at 5 p.m. against Berea College at Zweifel Baseball Field

February 21 at 3 p.m. against Kenyon College at Kentucky Proud Park in Lexington.

February 22 at 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. against Kenyon College at Zweifel Baseball Field.

February 25 at 2 p.m. against Kentucky State University at Zweifel Baseball Field.

February 28 at 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. against the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater at Zweifel Baseball Field.

March 1 at 11 a.m. against the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater at Zweifel Baseball Field.

March 15 at 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. against LaGrange College at Zweifel Baseball Field.

March 16 at 1 p.m. against LaGrange College at George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester, Ky. 

April 2 at 6 p.m. against Earlham College at Zweifel Baseball Field.

April 4 at 6 p.m. against Maryville College at Zweifel Baseball Field.

April 5 at 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. against Maryville College at Zweifel Baseball Field.

April 11 at 6:30 p.m. against Hiram College at Zweifel Baseball Field.

April 12 at 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. against Hiram College at Zweifel Baseball Field.

April 17 at 6 p.m. against Belhaven University at Zweifel Baseball Field.

April 18 at 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. against Belhaven University at Zweifel Baseball Field.

April 22 at 6 p.m. against Centre College at Zweifel Baseball Field.