DELAND, Fla.  - This time of the year is the best time of the year for Stetson head baseball coach Steve Trimper. After all, it's been an unusual offseason, one he’s reminded of when he steps into his office and stares at his bookcase.

  • Trimper led Stetson to first regional win in 2018
  • Spent past 11 years conceiving ideas for the book
  • Book became a top-selling business book on Amazon

That's because Trimper spent this past summer writing the next chapter of his story.

Iif you woulda told me that I was gonna be an author, and I’m still like, 'I’m not an author, I’m a baseball coach.' But then I’m like, wait a minute, I got published.”

The book is called "Walk Off Winning: A Game Plan for Leading Your Team and Organization to Success." It's more than 80-thousand words, and a decade in the making.

"He’s a very determined guy," senior outfielder Andrew MacNeil said. "One of those people who does anything he just puts his mind to."

Like a batter in the box, he dug in. After a challenging 2019 campaign that saw the Hatters go 27-32, he found himself with just months to finish before deadline. So the majority of the book was finished while recruiting on the road last summer .

“So seven days a week, I had the same routine. I would get up at 4:30. I would pour two cups of coffee. I would think about the book. And I would write from five o-clock, to nine o-clock a.m.,” he said.  

It’s not really a baseball book though. It’s about leadership. Lessons the 49-year-old learned at the ballpark and in the boardroom that can be applied in business, sports, or even at home.

"There’s things that he’ll just say to us in a meeting and if you go and look in the book, it’s like, 'hey, we hear that almost every day,'" MacNeil said. "So it’s just the stuff that he pretty much preaches every day with a lot of context behind it."

And it turns out Trimper hit a home run. "Walk Off Winning" became the fourth-best selling business book on Amazon just a couple of weeks after its release. Proof that this baseball guy is a book worm after all.​

“I learned a ton about myself, that again, as much effort as you want to put into something, you can become great,” Trimper said.