In a way, it was impossible to be prepared for the violence of the moment – that instant in which a sharply hit liner found an opposing baseball team’s coach in his box, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

But also in a way, the St. John Fisher team members were ready, without really knowing this was a moment they had prepared for.

A couple of years ago, Dan Pepicelli began asking his teams to sit down before the season and decide what’s important – to list their values. Before this year’s season, he described that method during a hazing summit at the NCAA Convention to help others consider ways to prepare student-athletes to do the right thing when faced with making a sudden decision.

“Now, it’s easier for me as a coach to say, ‘This is who you say we are,’ ” he explained at the Nashville summit. “The way we live or behave should match this.”

This year’s Cardinals listed trustworthiness, hard work, loyalty, family, honesty and teammates – “That last one was my favorite,” Pepicelli says now – and constantly reminded themselves of those values by hanging banners in the team clubhouse.

In May, with a postseason berth on the line, Oswego State was leading St. John Fisher when Oswego coach Frank Paini was struck in the head by a hit ball. A few minutes later, after rushing to Paini’s side, then returning to his dugout to consult with his team, Pepicelli walked across the field before a hushed crowd and conceded the game – ending a season and his seniors’ collegiate playing careers.

“I can’t honestly say it was based on (the values) we’ve talked about,” he says. “It would be convenient to say that, but I think for any human being who was there and witnessed it, it was real clear that this was a violent thing that happened, and we’ve got to get these kids over with their coach. This is life.”

Then Pepicelli thinks about it a bit more. “I guess, though, that’s right – these are the kinds of things that do come up, that you certainly don’t plan for.”

Pepicelli thinks most collegiate coaches – including his wife, Robyn, an assistant women’s soccer coach at Syracuse – use methods similar in one way or another to his own. In fact, he credits Clemson baseball coach Jack Leggett, whom Pepicelli heard talk during a seminar about “getting guys to buy into doing the right thing all the time,” as the inspiration for his own approach to coaching.

“It’s the same as if I said, ‘OK, who’s supposed to be covering third, or how do we want to be communicating on fly balls?’ ” Pepicelli explains. “It’s the same thing – we need to make our objectives very, very clear. What are we trying to get done?

“We really defined who we are and what we’re trying to be.”

Months before their defining moment, the 2008 Fisher team and its coach defined themselves. They were ready when the moment came.