By Miles Prusek

“Breath in for 6, hold for 2, breathe out for 8.” All 16 members of the Collegiate varsity baseball team lay in the outfield grass on Sam Newell Field. Walking between the players sprawled out in the grass is a coach leading them through breathing techniques and visualization methods. This routine happens every day, before every practice and every game. The coach behind this routine is Assistant Coach Brian Turnage.

Turnage has been involved with baseball his whole life. He started playing as a child at Tuckahoe Little League, and he continued his career at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he was a four-year player. After college, he joined the Richmond Fire Department and has served in various roles throughout his 25 years there, and his last position was the Battalion Chief of the Richmond Fire Department. While he was working in the fire department, Turnage also worked as an assistant coach for the Collegiate varsity baseball team. Since retiring from the fire department in January, he has continued to be a crucial part of the Collegiate baseball coaching staff, and he is also the founder and owner of Mental Edge Athletic Training. 

Turnage playing baseball at VMI. Photo credit: mentaledgeva.com.

As a catcher at VMI, Turnage was always looking for ways to improve his game. He said, “I was never the biggest, most athletic, or most talented baseball player. I was able to succeed by trusting in my coaches and working tirelessly to improve every day.” This discipline and work ethic is something that Turnage attributes to his time playing at VMI. At VMI, he said, “I had to learn to address challenges to the best of my ability. Sometimes I failed… but I always got better from those challenges… and never gave up.” 

While playing baseball, Turnage realized the importance of being a supportive teammate. When Turnage joined the Richmond Fire Department, he said the lessons he learned about teamwork were “paramount” to his job as a firefighter. As a firefighter, Turnage faced many challenging situations with his team, and the bonds that he created with each member of his team were important to their success. 

While working at the fire department, Turnage did not stop looking for ways to improve. In 2018, he graduated from a two-year Master’s of Education program at Xavier University with a focus on Coaching Education and Athlete Development. During that program, Turnage was drawn to the topic of mental performance in sports. He realized that he had been “utilizing many mindfulness techniques, which are utilized in mental performance, to slow emergency scenes down.” He knew that those techniques had helped him in many high-stress situations as a firefighter, and he realized that they could be utilized in sports.

This year Turnage has implemented the techniques that he mastered during the program at Xavier into his coaching at Collegiate. Every day to start practice, he leads the baseball team through breathing, visualization, and mindset exercises. These have been an important factor in the team’s success this year. Pitcher Malcolm Pace (‘24) said, “I think a big difference between this year and last year has been Coach Turnage’s talks. I have a better understanding of what I need to do on the mound to perform at my best each pitch.” 

Turnage conducting a workshop. Photo credit: Dwayne Bonnette via twitter @DFC_PGFD.

After retiring from the fire department, he founded Mental Edge Athletic Training and is working to help athletes reach their full potential. At Mental Edge, Turnage works with his athletes individually, or in small groups to “assist them in maximizing their performance on the field and in life.” 

Turnage said that his goal for Mental Edge is to “maximize the potential of all of our athletes by increasing their understanding of themselves (mental), the sports they love (cognitive), and how they impact and interact with others (leadership).” He does this by teaching lessons and skills through his experience both as an athlete and as a firefighter. These experiences give him a unique perspective on high-stress situations and how to deal with them. He is able to pair his experiences and what he learned in his education at VMI and Xavier to make a personalized curriculum for each client. By doing this, he “create[s] positive learning experiences that will build resiliency within yourself… [and] assist[s] them in maximizing their performance on the field and in life.”

Maximizing each day has been a goal for the Collegiate baseball team that Turnage has emphasized. Breakout utility player Nicholas Chambers (’24) agreed that Turnage helps set the tone for each day. He said, “Turnage stresses his motto of ‘one percent better everyday’ to the team before every practice. It is a helpful reminder for me to start each practice with the mentality of improving some part of my game every chance I can.”

Turnage is helping in an area of sports that is not widely talked about. His work can help athletes perform their best, and the effects of his work are already showing with the success of the baseball team this year. The team has benefited from Turnage, but Turnage is also grateful for the opportunity. He said it is an “amazing opportunity … to work with the team every day on mental performance. I feel like it has helped us collectively perform well under the pressure we have faced throughout the season.”