F E A TUR E S TORY
John Couture:
P r a cticing Psycholo g y w i t h t h e C l e v e l a n d I n d i a n s
By Ron Ziemba, ’64 (Amherst)
For some people of a certain age, Bristol, Connecticut is perhaps best known for “The Bristol Stomp,” a song made popular by the Dovells in 1961. Bristol is also a town with a number of diverse and vibrant ethnic neighborhoods, and a rich history of industrial innovation. In recent years, it also became a city where factories were being closed down and jobs were being lost.
Weiler explains the first images of the Mars landscape.
John Couture, Gamma ‘92, at spring training with the Cleveland Indians.
For John Couture, Gamma ’92 (Amherst), growing up in Bristol in the 1980s, Bristol was a place to play baseball. And that’s what he did -- in pickup games, Little League (where his dad coached), Bristol High, American Legion and anywhere else he could find a game. And, when he graduated from Bristol High School, “I wanted to go to college to play baseball,” he recalls. “Baseball was my first love.” John is an Amherst College graduate and a member of the Gamma chapter of Psi Upsilon. John is still working in the game he loves -- not as a player, but as a key part of one of the most innovative baseball operations organizations in Major League Baseball. In John’s case, the job title is sports psychologist. In high school, John was a third baseman with a sharp batting eye and some lefthanded power. He achieved notoriety as a 15-year-old high-school freshman on the
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city’s popular and well-traveled American Legion team. Beginning in his sophomore year, college baseball coaches came to Bristol to see him play. One of those coaches was Bill Thurston of Amherst College. Plenty of schools were after John, some offering scholarship money. But Bill Thurston knew he had an advantage, because John Couture was not only a solid third baseman and a hitter with promise. He was also a straight-A student who did his homework and studied for tests. “I always wanted to be the best one out there,” John recalls. If I didn’t get a good grade on a test, I’d be mad at myself.” In short, John was internally motivated. John chose Amherst for three reasons: The school’s academic reputation, the opportunity to crack the starting lineup as a freshman, and Bill Thurston. “Coach Thurston was a well respected baseball man,” John says. “He was a teacher of the game, and he had a lot of contacts in professional baseball. He sold me on the school.” “Some of my teachers were kind of stunned when I was accepted at Amherst,” John recalls. “And there was definitely an intimidation factor in the classroom.” But John weathered the storm and graduated in 1992 with a major in psychology. It was John’s four-year roommate and best friend, Stephan Rapaglia, Gamma ’92, who suggested that the two first-year students
