Leading the Crawdads with heart and hustle

Doug Locascio’s first game as an employee of the Hickory Crawdads didn’t go quite as expected. But boy, was it a learning experience!

Doug had accepted, in the late winter of 2010, a position as a six-month intern in the ticket office for the minor league franchise. Two weeks before a new season was set to open, Doug’s supervisor resigned.

In a move that proved fortuitous for both of them, then General Manager Mark Seaman decided to hire the recent Campbell University grad as director of ticket operations.

“It was a move of either blind faith or desperation,” said Doug with a big laugh. “But ready or not, there I was.”

Opening night was on a Friday. Perfect spring evening in the Foothills. A thousand tickets had been presold for the game. That meant the likely selling of another thousand or so just before the game.

At least that’s what Doug was prepared for.

Instead, more than 2,500 folks – hungry to say “goodbye” to winter with an evening of hot dogs, cold beer, and baseball – walked up to the ticket windows that warm April evening.

“The line stretched from the ticket windows, across the parking lot, and over to the steps leading down from the upper parking area. We were absolutely swamped,” Doug remembered.

“Mark (Seaman) kept sticking his head in the door, asking if I needed help,” Doug continued. “I didn’t want to say yes, but even if I did, I was too green to tell him what I needed him to do.”

Doug wrapped up the tale of that first night by saying, “I fit the duck analogy in that game. On the surface, I might have seemed calm, but under the water my legs were moving just as fast as they could.”

So what did the young professional learn in that trial by fire?

“A lot of things,” Doug responded. “Be calm under pressure. Let people do their jobs. And keep smiling. Always keep smiling.”

A RELAXED CONVERSATION

Doug and I talk in his office on a sun-washed midweek afternoon in late July. The ’Dads are on the road, so the general manager has time to relax a bit and to reflect on his answers before speaking.

The conversation is free and easy and unfiltered, for Doug and I have known each other since his first season with the Crawdads back in 2010. I was teaching at Draughn High then, but I was also writing a weekly column for the now-defunct Catawba Valley Neighbors section of the Charlotte Observer, which focused on the team.

The view from Doug’s office is mighty impressive. He looks down on the playing field, the grass green and lush, the playing surface looking freshly manicured. Beyond the left field fence, the woods stretch away to the Catawba River. On the horizon stand the high peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Doug is a man of contradictions.

A Florida boy who has now grown to love the Foothills and the people of Western North Carolina.

A star wrestler in high school and college who was not much of a baseball fan now tied intimately to the Summer Game.

And, a young man who possesses boundless energy and a proven track record that could propel him to brighter lights and bigger cities, but who is happy to rear his family here and to continue building the Crawdad franchise into a model of excellence.

GROWING UP, GAINING EXPERIENCE

Doug grew up in the small city of Largo, Fla., taking full advantage of the area’s year-round warmth and spending much of his boyhood outdoors.

Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, was a 20-minute drive from Doug’s house.

The middle son among three brothers, he focused on wrestling in high school but also played football and was on the track and field squad.

“I had no business being on that football team, especially as a freshman,” Doug said. “I was 5 feet tall and weighed 85 pounds.”

Doug was successful enough as a wrestler to draw scholarship interest from several schools, one of them Campbell University in Buies Creek, about 45 minutes east of Raleigh.

“I had visited Western North Carolina on mission trips with my church youth group,” Doug said. “My mom and I had also visited Campbell. She liked the idea of small school, small community.”

Doug looks back on his years at Campbell as a golden time – wrestling at the collegiate level, making new friends, learning to love the progression of the seasons, which was missing in Florida, and being challenged academically.

“Definitely a period of growth for me,” he said. “I learned a lot about what my potentials were and what my weaknesses were.”

Doug had initially planned to be a sports agent and perhaps to follow up his undergraduate degree with entrance into Campbell’s School of Law.

Instead, he decided to major in sports management with a minor in business, rightly thinking that both would prove helpful in his upcoming career.

During his years in college, Doug interned with both the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the collegiate baseball Wilmington Sharks, members of the Coastal Plain League.

When he first learned about the internship for the summer of 2010 with the Crawdads – housing provided, along with a $300 per month stipend – he was initially reluctant to accept it and turned to his older brother for advice.

“What’s the worst that can happen?” his brother asked. “You hate it and in six months you come home and look for something else. Why not give it a shot?”

That “shot” has now lasted for more than 16 years.

INCREASING RESPONSIBILITIES

Within his first two years with the Crawdads, Doug saw his responsibilities increase to include not only ticket sales but merchandise sales – in the team store and online – as well.

September of 2014 brought another promotion, as Doug was named Executive Director of Sales and Merchandising. In early 2019, he assumed the larger role of Assistant General Manager.

What led to this rapid rise up the ladder?

“Mark Seaman,” Doug answers with no hesitation. “He was just a fantastic man to work for and with. He was truly a team player and a team leader. He always shared his knowledge with me and taught me everything he could. Fantastic mentor.”

When Seaman left the franchise in the middle of the 2019 season to take a position with the City of Hickory, Doug was immediately named his replacement.

“I love what I do and I love what this franchise does,” Doug answered when asked what has kept him in Hickory for nearly two decades.

“I like to think that we are giving our fans a nine-inning vacation. They can come into this ballpark, no matter how bad their day has been, and just have fun,” he continued.

“And I want them to be able to do that,” he went on, “whether they love baseball, hate baseball, or are entirely indifferent to baseball.”

MAKING MEMORIES

Making that sort of magic happen for 66 home games each season is a challenging full-time effort, especially when the team is at home during the season.

But Doug enjoys the work. And with the balanced schedule now in place, a week’s homestand is typically followed by a less stressful week with no home games.

“We are in the business of making memories,” said Doug when asked what his priorities are. “Making happy memories. Lasting memories. Memories of good times in a good place.”

“I love my life here,” Doug went on. “I love the relationships I’ve built in this community and I love the family that my wife and I are building. It would take an awful lot to get me to pick up and move.”

A final question for Doug: “Even though you’re the Top Dog, do you still help pull the tarp on and off the field when it rains, a process that I’ve seen leave you absolutely drenched?”

“I sure do,” is the response. “That is an ‘all hands on deck’ moment and I do mean all hands. I always take the corner that covers home plate because that is the most important location on the field.”

That image seems to capture Doug Locascio better than any job title ever could. The general manager who oversees every aspect of a successful franchise is still willing to grab a corner of a rain-soaked tarp because that’s what the moment requires.

Sixteen years after arriving in Hickory as an uncertain intern, he’s still doing whatever needs to be done – only now he’s helping lead not just a baseball team, but one of the foothills’ most enduring summer traditions.