Alum Andrew Tuetken publishing history books chronicling UMass athletics during the 2000s and 2010s

Andrew Tuetken is a proud UMass alum.

A four-year member of the Minutemen baseball team from 2005-08, Tuetken’s fondness for UMass athletics has lived on more than a decade after graduating from the Commonwealth’s flagship campus, so much so that Tuetken recently released two history books chronicling UMass athletics during the 2000s and 2010s. The books include information on 785 UMass athletes and are littered with pictures and statistics of prior Minutemen and Minutewomen squads.

“I’ve followed UMass athletics basically since I left Amherst and this was an opportunity that started because I love gathering information,” Tuetken said. “Most of it ends up in folders on a shelf in my house, but I started to realize that I was putting together a lot of information about some student-athletes through the first two decades of the 2000s that represented Minutemen and Minutewomen teams with a lot of pride and had a lot of success. As I started to piece things together, I was like ‘this could actually make a pretty good history book.’”

Tuetken is a high school history teacher in Rhode Island, so the former Minuteman first baseman is used to revisiting events of years past. But this isn’t any old passion project, rather Tuetken pledges to donate all proceeds from the sale of each book to the UMass baseball program as a fundraiser.

“I was coached by the current head coach, Matt Reynolds, he was an assistant there for three of my four seasons, him and I have stayed connected and I reached out and said ‘hey, I have this idea of creating these snapshot of what UMass has done through the first 20 years of the century.’ He was on board and it took off from there,” Tuetken said.

The books were completed this past April, but Tuetken said he began cultivating information as far back as 2020 during the pandemic. Tuetken credited former UMass senior associate athletic director David Biancamano with getting the project off the ground, before Tuetken was eventually given the go ahead to complete this undertaking by UMass’ trademark and licensing director Evelin Simmons and athletic director Ryan Bamford.

“After several different designs, I think the hardest part was, I wanted to make it not just a list of athletes and their accomplishments,” Tuetken said. “Also, I wanted a chance for these former players to appear on the pages, so obtaining photos and getting the information… I had to go through all the teams’ record books and all the individual games to see if I thought there was something worth mentioning.”

Tuetken mentioned he included information on a handful of varsity programs no longer active, including men’s tennis and men’s and women’s water polo. All told, each of Tuetken’s books come in at just under 100 pages and while he made sure to call attention to the success of the most popular sports in football, basketball and hockey, Tuetken emphasized shining a light on numerous other sports teams that have had memorable seasons this century.

“I wanted to make sure that what they did for their programs and for UMass athletics as a whole had a spot,” Tuetken said.

Born in Springfield, but raised in Smithfield, R.I., Tuetken has had ties to the Pioneer Valley essentially all his life. Now, UMass athletics fans from all over have the chance to learn about each and every one of the school’s teams while supporting today’s baseball program in the process.

“I’m really excited and proud of what the end result has been,” Tuetken said.

These books are available for purchase on Amazon and the paperback editions are being sold for $20. UMass Athletics: 2000's (UMass Athletics in the 21st Century) can be found using link: https://a.co/d/0duaz5y, while UMass Athletics: 2010's (UMass Athletics in the 21st Century) can be found using link: https://a.co/d/deI5VJq.