Davis Szymanski Director of Baseball Performance

Dr. David Szymanski is in his second season as LA Tech’s Director of Baseball Performance. In this role, he serves as head strength coach and sport scientist for the team. Szymanski previously served as a volunteer assistant baseball coach and the head strength and conditioning coach under former head coach Wade Simoneaux for eight years. You can see videos and photos of players training and testing at https://www.latechsportscience.org/

Szymanski is also the department chair and a professor in the Louisiana Tech Department of Kinesiology. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with distinction (CSCS*D), Registered Strength and Conditioning Coach emeritus (RSCC*E), and Fellow (FNSCA) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Szymanski has trained and tested baseball players since 1992.

Szymanski is a co-editor with Dr. Gene Coleman, professor emeritus, former chair of the fitness and human performance program at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and former head strength and conditioning coach for the Houston Astros, and a contributing author in a “Strength Training for Baseball” book that was recently published by the NSCA and Human Kinetics. You can find more information about the book at https://us.humankinetics.com/products/strength-training-for-baseball

Before coming to Tech, he served as the exercise physiologist for Auburn University’s baseball team where he trained, tested, and evaluated the player’s athletic performance. Through his evaluation, Szymanski established baseball-specific workouts and training methods to enhance baseball performance.

This year, the Bulldog players have completed various performance tests to assess their body composition, strength and power in addition to completing a resistance training program preparing them for competition.

Szymanski played at Texas Lutheran and later served as an assistant baseball coach and recruiting coordinator for the Southwestern Athletic Conference school for four years. He is a member and a former board of directors’ member of the NSCA.

Szymanski is also a Sports Science Educational Board Member of Power Lift as well as a Senior Contributor for SportsEdTV. He has conducted and contributed to over 70 scientific investigations and reviews examining various aspects of sports performance. His primary research has focused on ways to improve and understand baseball performance, such as pitching and hitting.

During the fall of 2020, he completed three pitching studies with the Bulldog pitchers; one that correlated their pinch and grip strength on velocity and spin variables of different pitch types, one that evaluated the relationship between body stature, body composition, absolute and relative strength (squat, bench press, and 1-arm row) and power (1- and 2-leg vertical jump height and force plate data) to fastball velocity, and the third was the relationship between kinetics (forces) of countermovement vertical jump and trunk mechanics of baseball pitching. He and one of his graduate students presented their findings virtually at the 2021 NSCA’s National Conference this past summer.

Additionally, this fall Szymanski has been collecting pitching data from the wind-up analyzed by Qualisys 3D motion capture cameras, PitchAI app, Bertec force plates embedded into a pitching mound, and CosMed K5 breathing device collecting expired O₂ and CO₂ while also evaluating various pitches using the Rapsodo pitching device. Dr. Mu Qiao, assistant professor at Tech, Dr. Ryan Crotin, research associate at Tech and Vice President of ArmCare.com, and four graduate students have been working with Szymanski to analyze all of the data. You can see videos and photos of the Tech baseball players at https://www.latechsportscience.org/

Szymanski completed his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at Texas Lutheran and his master’s degree in sports management at Texas State. He earned his doctorate in exercise physiology at Auburn.

Szymanski and his wife, Jessica, have two sons: Dawson and Justin, both of whom play baseball at Ruston High School. Jessica Szymanski holds a CSCS certification through the NCSA, is an instructor in the Department of Kinesiology, and is the assistant strength coach for the Bulldog baseball team.

Ryan Amodei Associate Director of Student-Athlete Success Services

Ryan is a native of Wilton, Connecticut. He graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor’s in Sport and Recreation Management from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. He also graduated from Louisiana Tech Unviersity with a Master of Business Administration in 2022.

He has served as the Student-Athlete Success Coordinator for the Diamond Dogs since March 2020. He was promoted to Associate Director of Student-Athlete Success Services in July 2021. In this role, Ryan oversees academic support for four Tech sports, tracks eligibility and progress towards degree, meets regularly with freshman and transfers to ensure academic success, and much more. In addition to on-field success, the Diamond Dogs have performed tremendously in the classroom in recent years – many players have graduated early, some have left with two degrees, and the team GPA has been consistently over a 3.0. Ryan assists our players in attaining their goals, academically and professionally.

Ryan currently lives in Ruston with his wife, Veronica.

Dan Takata Associate Athletic Trainer

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Dan Takata is in his first year as an assistant athletic trainer at Louisiana Tech, working primarily with the football and golf teams.

Prior to his time at Tech, Dan most recently worked at Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, Virginia after having worked for the University of Virginia with their tennis, squash, and volleyball teams. Before that, he worked at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as an intern with their football team during the 2020 offseason following completion of a seasonal athletic training internship with the New York Jets for their 2019 season.

A double 'Hoo, Dan earned his B.S.Ed. from the University of Virginia in the winter of 2016 majoring in Kinesiology + Government Politics before earning his Master's of Science in Athletic Training in 2019. During his time in grad school he worked with the football, women's rowing, and men's lacrosse teams, culminating in a national championship in the spring of 2019.

Dan is CPR/AED certified, a licensed Athletic Trainer in the state of Louisiana, and a member of the National Athletic Trainer's Association. Additionally, he is certified in Mental Health First Aid and a certified QPR Gatekeeper.

Kelsey Chanler Assistant Director Strategic Communications

Kelsey spent the 2022 MiLB season as the Marketing and Creative Services Assistant with the AA team for the Royals, the Northwest Arkasnas Natuals before making her way to Ruston. Prior to working at LA Tech, she’s worked in many other sports organizations around the U.S. and has been involved in freelance work through NCAA Baseball to MLB.

Kelsey is a native of Smackover, Arkansas. She began her career at a young age, following in the footsteps of her mother by photographing Southern Arkansans University football games. While later attending Southern Arkansas on a softball scholarship, she found that photographing baseball games in her free time was what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She then moved to Ouachita Baptist University to continue her softball career and take on the role as Tigers’ photographer. Wanting to focus on a career in baseball, she hung her cleats up and transferred to Arkansas Tech University to begin her role as photographer for the Wonderboys and Golden Suns where she graduated in May of 2020 with a degree in Graphic Design and a minor in Communication.

Kelsey worked the 2021 MiLB season as the Tulsa Drillers Video Production Assistant and then went on to be the Manager of Graphic Design, Photography and Content for the Dallas Mavericks G-League Team, the Texas Legends. In the summer of 2018, Kelsey was a summer intern for the Cape Cod Baseball League as the league’s graphic designer and photographer.