(This article first appeared in a different form in the July print edition of the Hendersonian. Flash management said DuPre was dealing with an injury all summer and has gone home to rehabilitate.)
The Henderson Flash are comprised of baseball players from many different parts of the country. Each of them has their own baseball origin story and level of major league fandom, but arguably none matches the passion of Jake DuPre.
DuPre is the founder, owner, and operator of the Rangers.Nation profile on Instagram, which currently has over 138,000 followers.
The outfielder, from McKinney, Texas, came to the Flash by way of Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. The Bisons have established a pipeline to the Flash since their inception in 2016, sending several players to Henderson over the years. DuPre credited that relationship and his head coach, Dr. Patrick McGaha, as the reasons that his journey brought him here.
“I love it. I love all the people here. It’s a beautiful state,” said DuPre of his experience with the Flash. “My goal is just to develop my game, just to be more consistent at the plate, and really find out who I am as a player.”
DuPre has loved the game of baseball ever since he started playing tee ball around age four and hopes to play it as long as he can but knows his professional options may be limited. One way he hopes to stay in and around baseball is through Rangers.Nation.
The Instagram profile was started by DuPre when he was 11 years old, and he’s been running it since. Its origin is a self-proclaimed “funny story.”
When his sister, Paris, was 14, she wrote a song and created a music video. Then, one of her friends created a fan account for her as a joke, prompting Jake to create one of his own.
“I was kind of jealous and wanted to make my own fan account, so I made one for the Rangers. Never in a million years did I think it would grow as big as it is,” said DuPre. “I just did it on a whim just for fun, then consistently posted and people liked what I was posting, and it grew to what it is today.”
Within about a year and a half of starting, the account had already garnered 20,000 followers. DuPre could not believe it based on his preteen level of expertise and inexperience in creating content and graphics. That’s when he began to take it seriously and learned as much as he could about photoshop and the Texas Rangers.
Now, he has a small staff including a graphic designer, a content strategist, an in-game reporter and an intern.
His in-game reporter is fan-favorite Jim Knox, who was the official field reporter for the Texas Rangers until 2016. Other important, but unofficial staffers, include DuPre’s parents, Matt and Ramona.
“I don’t even know if I told them at first. It was so small and I just did it for fun. They’ve been extremely supportive along the entire way,” stated DuPre. “My dad continues to help me develop it into a full-time business.”
DuPre and his family were not the only people who were surprised by the success of Rangers.Nation.
Around age 13, DuPre had the opportunity to meet major league pitcher Nick Martinez at the Texas Rangers fanfest. As he asked for an autograph and introduced himself as Rangers.Nation, Martinez was astounded to discover that the social media page he had been communicating with was run by a teenager.
Rangers.Nation has afforded DuPre many unique experiences along the way. One of those was a planned section takeover at a game on a random Tuesday in 2023. He was able to attract around 400-500 fans to join him that day.
It garnered both national and international attention, as his section chanted, “Come to Texas” at then Angels superstar and now three-time MVP, Shohei Ohtani. DuPre was interviewed by Japanese media following the event.
Due to the attention, DuPre also got to throw out the first pitch at a Rangers’ game, living out the lifelong dream of many baseball fans.
Along with the exciting opportunities that came, 2023 proved to be a pivotal year for Rangers.Nation. Up to that point, there were times when DuPre considered giving up because the Rangers’ lack of success and in turn the loss of engagement on his account.
At the start of the 2023 season, he had about 40,000 followers and by its end that number had more than doubled to over 95,000. It was no coincidence that the Rangers had also won their first ever World Series that year. DuPre, then, became more committed than ever.
As his baseball career winds down, DuPre has begun to look to the future. The current Business Management major hopes that his experience and success with Rangers.Nation will expand into other opportunities as well.
“I’m not completely sold out to just doing Rangers.Nation for my career, but I would definitely like to, if that’s a possibility,” he said. “I’d love to develop this into a full-time thing.”
