Minium: ODU Baseball Catcher Evan Holman Inspired By A Traumatic Injury He Suffered As A Child

By Harry Minium

It was an unusually hot and humid day in small town Aurora, Oregon, 95 degrees without a cloud in the sky, so coaches of the North Marion Junior Baseball team decided to cancel practice and take the kids to a local pool.

The 11-year-old boys were having a blast as they rolled down a slide into the water, each trying to outdo the other. That is, until catcher Evan Holman went soaring into the water and then, for a few moments, did not immediately come to the surface.

“We were all going in head first,” Evan said. “I guess I dove a little too vertical.”

He did. His head hit the bottom of the pool, wrenching his neck.

When he finally surfaced, “I was trying to scream but couldn’t,” he said. “I couldn’t move my arms or straighten my neck. I wasn’t in a lot of pain, but it was a very unsettling feeling.”

Turns out he broke his neck, although not grievously so – he had four compression fractures in his spine with, thankfully, no nerve damage.

Fortunately, his mother, Ginger Hollman, saw her son and quickly came to his aid.

Ginger, short for “Virginia,” is a physical therapist and immediately recognized that her son had a neck injury, laid him flat on the ground to avoid doing further damage and called for an ambulance.

She knew her son would be fine, “but it really hit me what had happened as we were leaving the hospital.”

Her son left in a Cervical Thoracic Orthosis brace, designed to keep his spine immobile, that extended from his waist to his chin.

Evan was just 11, but remembers the conversation with doctors clearly.

“I was told that I came very close to having a serious injury, to perhaps being paralyzed,” he said. “I’m so lucky to be at the point where I am today.

“That always stuck with me, how lucky I am and that the life I’ve had could have been taken away so easily.”

That near-miss, he says, gave him a greater appreciation for the gift of life and helped make him determined to make the most of his time on earth.

That drive led Evan to an outstanding athletic career at North Marion High School, where he captained the baseball, soccer and basketball teams, and eventually 2,980 miles across the country to Old Dominion University, where the 5-foot-11 junior is the Monarchs’ starting catcher.

ODU meets No. 12 Southern Miss this evening in a second-round game of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament in Montgomery, Alabama. Holman scored a run on Wednesday in ODU’s 4-2 victory over No. 22 Troy in Wednesday’s quarterfinals.

Holman was fortunate to have two parents in the medical field. His father, Trevor, is an athletic trainer and thus both parents played key roles in his recovery.

His rehab was done at a clinic where Ginger works and was done under her supervision.

Trevor was his moral support and at times, voice of reason.

“Evan is an intensely motivated kid,” Ginger said. “As soon as he got off the pain medicine he wanted to do exercises to get better.”

Trevor said, “My main contribution was trying the keep him down. He’s the kind of young man who will go through walls or jump down the stairs. If there’s a way to get the ball, he’s going after it.

“I didn’t have a huge role in his recovery. But his recovery hinged upon him not rushing it and that was hard at 11 years old.”

Part of his recovery included working the muscles and joints on both sides of his body. So, when he returned to baseball, Ginger told coaches he needed to become a switch hitter. “I wanted the muscles to heal the same way.”

His determination to succeed never wavered and that extended to the choices he made in his personal life.

Aurora is a small, conservative town with less than 1,200 residents founded by a German Christian sect in the 1860s. And he’s the epitome of small-town America. Humble, caring, loyal and hard-working.

“He’s been chasing the dream of playing Division I baseball since a very young age,” Trevor said. “He's made so many decisions about his social life, the things he does, the friends he chooses, with that dream in mind.

“He made so many decisions you wouldn’t expect a young man to make. He was so motivated to stay on a straight path.”

Evan was a good soccer and basketball player but excelled at baseball. He was a two-time all-state choice and conference Player of the Year. He was named the outstanding senior athlete at North Marion.

However, not a lot of Division I schools showed interest in him, so he went to Bellevue College in suburban Seattle, a junior college where he hit .272 and caught the eyes of ODU coaches after one season.

The Monarchs have had remarkable success recruiting players from the Pacific Northwest. The 2021 ODU team, which went to an NCAA Regional final, had three starters from the Pacific Northwest, including catcher Brock Gagliardi.

Current Monarch pitcher Ethan Hubbell, from Camas, Washington, also came to ODU via the junior college route.

“We’ve had a good track record with kids from the Pacific Northwest,” said ODU Assistant Coach Jonathan Hadra. “We’ve had a lot of guys come here and have success.

“They tend to be blue-collar, hard-working kids.”

“And,” he added with a laugh, “a lot of them want to get out of the rain.”

ODU coaches noticed Evan in the Pacific Northwest Junior College showcase and quickly liked what they saw, including what they learned about his parents.

“We try to check all of the boxes to make sure we get the right kind of character in the program,” Hadra said. “You get a feel for the kids by getting a good glimpse of the parents.

“Coming almost 3,000 miles, you know they’re going to struggle. You want to know they’re going to have the support of their family when they do have those struggles.

“Evan has definitely had the support of his family.”

They liked the fact that ODU Head Coach Chris Finwood and Hadra are what they call “old-school coaches.”

“He’s always been coached by old-school coaches,” Trevor said. “That’s part of what drew him to coach Finwood and coach Hadra.

“They are loyal to the core and so is he.”

Ginger and Trevor have been to Norfolk three times this season and followed the Monarchs on a road trip to the deep south that took them to two SEC schools.

It was a difficult season for the Monarchs, who did not play any true home games while Bud Metheny Ballpark was underdoing a $24 million renovation. ODU also played a difficult non-conference schedule and lost several close games.

They enter tonight’s game with a 22-29 record.

“We knew it was going to be a difficult season, and it has been,” Evan said. “But we knew it was going to benefit us.

“The rough preseason schedule got us ready for the conference schedule. And the new stadium, that’s something I’ve been looking forward to since I committed to play here.

“Moving into the new stadium is going to be a great experience for all of us, the players and fans, everyone connected with ODU baseball.”

Evan had the support of what he calls his extended family.

His brother Aidan, is a University of Oregon graduate who plays in a band in Southern California. Although Aidan wasn’t an athlete, they are intensely close.

His girlfriend, Katie Jo Donahoe, is a Washingon native whom he met at Bellevue. They quickly became a couple and she elected to follow him east to Norfolk.

“I’m very grateful for her and for all of the support she’s given me,” he said.

“I’ve always been very close with my parents. They are the reason I’m where I am today.”

His voice filled with emotion as he continued.

“The way they brought me up and raised me, I'm so grateful for that,” he said. “It’s hard not to be emotional about this.

“They’ve been so supportive, so loving and really just been by my side through everything and taught me a lot of life lessons.”

Hadra said Evan has emerged as a team leader who leads mostly by example. Both he and Jake Slater came to ODU as catchers last season.

“You have two people competing at the same position and all they do is support each other, root for each other,” Hadra said. “They care about each other.

“That says so much about their character, about Evan’s character.

“He plays every game like it’s his last. He doesn’t ever take a break. All he does it work. He doesn’t take anything for granted.

“That’s what makes him such an endearing member of our team who everyone roots for and pulls for.”

Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram