Tom Engberg stood among the red-clad Denison fans applauding a team that had reignited his long-dormant love of baseball. That’s when the chanting started.
“Tom, Tom Tom, Tom … ”
Engberg drove the Big Red bus to almost every road game of the 2026 season, culminating with a College World Series championship in Eastlake, Ohio, on June 4. In a four-month span, he went from being a total stranger to someone who felt like a small part of the team.
But as the players on the field, adorned in their “National Champions” T-shirts, looked in his direction and put more gusto into their chants, Engberg was confused.
“It was a surreal moment,” he says. “I’m looking around, looking behind me, wondering, ‘Who is this for?’”
Then, someone handed the bus driver the NCAA championship trophy, and he raised it to the heavens.
Tom Engberg lifts the NCAA championship trophy minutes after Denison’s baseball team won the Division III College World Series in Eastlake, Ohio. (Photo: Hailey Owens)
‘Vested interest’
Engberg, 51, started driving buses as a junior at Ohio State University, where he earned a degree in criminology. He later added a master’s in resource interpretation from Stephen F. Austin State University and has spent the past 16 years working for the National Park Service.
He never lost his desire to drive a bus.
“It sounds a little silly, but it’s my hobby,” Engberg says. “I truly love doing it.”
In recent years, he drove various Denison athletic teams on the 46-foot-long Barons Bus, but until February he never met coach Mike Deegan and the baseball team.
On a season-opening trip to Greensboro, North Carolina, Engberg immediately took a liking to Deegan and his coaching staff. They treated him well and engaged him in conversation. He enjoyed the banter, and how they kept dropping references to one of his favorite baseball movies, Major League.
Even on that first road trip, Deegan sensed Engberg was a good fit. The coach requested him every time the Big Red traveled.
“You could just feel Tom’s vested interest,” Deegan says. “You could feel him wanting to do his part, and his care level for the players and coaches was something hard to articulate, but it’s just something you felt.”
Denison won its first game in Greensboro before dropping its second game to Salisbury University. The Big Red wouldn’t lose again until May 29.
‘This is so inspiring’
Engberg has a complicated relationship with baseball. Growing up in Lima, Ohio, he adored the game. He was a catcher who played competitively through middle school. An old soul, Engberg charted games by hand in his scorebook.
But the 1994 Major League Baseball players’ strike and the subsequent owners’ lockouts, dulled his enthusiasm. It bothered him that millionaire players didn’t run out ground balls or try harder to break up double plays.
“It kind of sours you, and that’s what happened with me for a long time,” he says. “There seemed to be a lack of hustle, a lack of heart. I grew cynical.” Enberg had never followed college baseball. But as he got to know the Denison players, he found himself in the stands for road games. Sometimes, he opened the hatch atop the bus and watched from the roof.
“We loved seeing him out there behind the fence sitting on top of the Barons Bus,” World Series MVP Cade Nowik ’26 says. “You can tell when someone’s really interested, and the players appreciated that he cared so much about us.”
It didn’t hurt that Engberg and his wife have two daughters close in age to the players. He relates to the generation.
What really appealed to him, however, was the joy with which the Big Red played. It reminded Engberg of his youth and his approach to the game.
And while tying a Division III record with 44 consecutive wins ensures you’re not having many bad days, Engberg saw players banding together, picking up teammates after the occasional mistake. He witnessed the character and resilience in a team that rallied from big deficits in the NCAA tournament. Denison came back from five runs down to beat East Texas Baptist University and from three runs down to beat Endicott College in the deciding World Series game.
“They always play with a smile on their face,” Engberg says. “It didn’t matter what the score was or how much pressure there was. You could tell they were genuinely having fun. Hustling on every play. And it just brought me back to when I was a kid. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is so inspiring.’”
‘Speaking from the heart’
With each road trip, Engberg’s admiration for Deegan deepened.
One of the coach’s greatest qualities is his ability to make everyone involved in the program — from the star pitcher to the athletic trainers — feel like they are stakeholders in the team’s success. That includes the bus driver.
“It’s Tom’s job to get us where we’re going safely, and get us there early and to make the trip as stress-free as possible,” Deegan says. “Tom was dominant in his role.”
Engberg read Deegan’s bio, and bought his book, Let It Rip: Life Lessons Learned Through Sports.
“Mike is a tremendous leader,” Engberg says. “I hope to transfer some of those leadership skills into my line of work.”
Tom Engberg works as a public information officer for Wildland Fires, a division of the National Park Service. (Photo courtesy of Tom Engberg)
Engberg is a public information officer for Wildland Fire, a division of the National Park Service. His busy season runs from October through December, when he’s frequently out West with an incident management team that fights fires. His schedule affords him time to drive the bus in the winter and spring.
His role with Wildland Fire is serious business. Engberg needs to communicate risk to the public through the media with clarity and calm. In Deegan, he sees an outstanding communicator and “storyteller.”
“The message he conveys to the students is exemplified in the way they play,” Engberg says. “That cohesion and family atmosphere he nurtures is impressive.”
As the Big Red rolled into Eastlake for the College World Series, Enberg asked Deegan if he could address the players before they got off the bus.
He congratulated them on a great season. He explained the impact they had made on his life and how, through their play and conduct, it had awakened a passion for baseball that had gone missing for years.
“It was so cool to hear him speaking from the heart,” says Nowik, who added to his family legacy at Denison. “You could tell he meant every word of it.”
‘An awesome feeling’
As players and coaches celebrated the Big Red’s first NCAA championship on June 4, Deegan planned for only one special acknowledgment.
The coach carried the trophy into the stands and shared a moment with his 40 former players who had traveled to suburban Cleveland to watch the final games.
“We frequently talk about the role our alumni have played in getting us to this point,” Deegan says. “We stand on the backs of their achievement.”
What happened next was completely unscripted, or as Deegan called it, “totally organic.”
With the trophy already in the stands, the players chanted Engberg’s name.
“Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom.”
“We wanted him to feel part of the celebration,” Nowik says.
It took a minute for fans to understand what the players desired. Eventually, one of the alums walked the trophy over to where Engberg stood.
As the bus driver lifted it, players, coaches and supporters erupted in cheers.
“It was just an awesome feeling,” he says.
Engberg drove the team home, stopping only once so players could grab snacks. They arrived on campus just before midnight.
There was no speech this time, as the players walked off the bus, but Engberg was filled with gratitude.
The man who had driven the Big Red to glory was the one who received a most unexpected lift.
“I could never have imagined this when the season started,” Engberg says. “I’ve really grown to love this team. I’m going to miss those seniors, who gave so much to this program, but I can’t wait for next season.”
