Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kirikuti's joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing, sir?
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Great. How are you?
[00:00:18] Speaker A: We got our esteemed guest, Mr. Jonathan Grass on again this week. Fired up as usual. What's up, man?
[00:00:24] Speaker C: What's up, guys? How are you? Thanks for having me on.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: I think for those of you who don't know, he's director of Elite national baseball. Jonathan was a college baseball coach. Pitch in the Division 2 World Series or Kutztown. Drive through Kutztown when I go home. I was thinking Jonathan. I'm usually either on the phone or texting with him at that time anyways. But he also happened to be the pitching coach at Brown for a period of time. So he has some really personal and unique insight, as me and Keith do into the topic for today's discussion, which is high academic baseball. And we've talked about it before as we've also talked about. Things change. The needle's moving, rules have changed, timing has changed.
So there's a little bit more to unpack here. So you guys ready to rock?
All right, for the purposes of today's discussion, going to try to loosely define what we mean by high academic. And both of you, feel free to chime in and add anything to what I'm about to say. But general rule of thumb is that it takes support from the athlete from the baseball program to get you into school, meaning that the academic standards are high enough that there's a legitimate admissions process for athletes to be admissible into that school. Whether it's pre reads, whether it's mandatory test scores, some sort of an index or a ranking system that these coaches have to operate by. Not just, hey, that school's pretty selective because UCLA is really selective. But I can promise you that John Savage isn't. Have anybody having any issues getting anybody into school.
Uva, Vanderbilt, all great degrees.
They are not a part of this conversation.
While graduating from said institution is an accomplishment, I would argue that there's probably only three or four Power 4 schools who actually fall into this category.
Stanford, Northwestern.
I would put Duke in there based on my interactions with the staff down there about that is a legitimate piece of information that they need. And the other one that I would say, I know there's some barrier to entry there for sure is Boston College. But anybody else from a powerful
[00:02:55] Speaker C: Notre Dame.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Notre Dame, very good.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: Everybody else is kind of, I would say, eliminated.
Again, not that they're bad schools, they're Just. Or not good schools. It's just for the purpose of this conversation. Yes, that would be it.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah. No alarms get mad at us. We're
[00:03:12] Speaker B: also the. The Ivy League is included in this. Just so everyone is clear.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Yes, yes, the Ivy League is very much a part of this conversation, along with another handful of Division 1 schools, a good collection of really high academic Division Threes, the Nescacs, the UAAs.
Good collection of schools in the Centennial.
Got a couple out west with Pomona and Claremont, Feud out South.
But it's a. It's a fairly selective group, and we'll get into that a little bit later.
But what I want to pitch over to YouTube is our first general topic now that we've cleared the air on what high academic is.
There's. There's two myths, and they're kind of the inverse of each other that seem to periodically make their way around Twitter or through conversation that I think we need to dispel now.
So, Jonathan, I'm going to open it up for you to give us one of them.
And then, Keith, you piggyback on the other side of this, and let's tackle this right up front.
[00:04:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I think the first one, right, is. Is that, hey, I'm a 35 act. I'm a 1500 sat.
I have a 4. 0. I go to a great school.
I'm all right at baseball, but I can go and play in the Ivy League or I can go and play it XYZ school.
That is not the case at all.
They work hand in hand together.
There's not one that's more important or less important. They're both equally important.
So you have to be able to play for. I'll use the Ivy League here for a second.
You have to be able to play Division 1 baseball, and you have to meet a standard of academics that they are able to get into school.
The other caveat to that is that just because they're in the Ivy League doesn't mean that all eight can get said player in and doesn't mean that one. What? Doesn't mean that all eight can. But it doesn't. It may mean that one can. So, like, there's also caveats to it. Even though they're in the same league, they're in that same category.
But just because someone can get you in doesn't mean everybody can get you in.
So it's. It is very tricky when, when it gets down to that. But when you're looking at it right, just because you can get into school, you know, potentially on your own or apply there and potentially get in and you like to play baseball does not mean that you are going to be a supported student athlete, that they're going to get you in through admissions and get you that likely ladder.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Yeah, like I think the one thing too, like we're looking at the high academic level, regardless of the fact you're looking for good baseball players that can happen to be smart.
But the same holds true at the Division 3 level.
You need to have guys that are going to be admissible in your, at your academic institution. And just because you can get into one doesn't mean you can get into some of the others.
You know, and speaking from my experience, you know, I coached at a STEM school for 10 years, you know, the math portion of your SAT was a lot more important, let's say, than your reading score. Not to say that your reading score could be 400. Right. And you, you have a 700 and a 400. But like if you want engineering, you needed to have a pretty high math score to be able to get into our school, you know, so like it. There's a lot of, there's a lot of nuance in this, which I'm, I'm looking forward to unpacking in this tonight because I don't necessarily know that we've done this on a podcast where we're going to kind of get into the weeds on this and there's no real, it's probably going to feel a little convoluted towards the end, but there's there, you need to have really good grades and you also happen to have to be a really good baseball player. It doesn't matter whether it's division one or three. Right. And I think one of the things that happens at the like in this realm specifically is that a lot of these kids are driving towards the high academic realm and they're, they're targeting the Ivies where Jonathan coached. And if they can't get into some of the Ivies, they're going, they're not necessarily going to go to a mid major Division 1 or Division 2 school. Like they're going to go to a top end academic division three school. So like all of those academic things really do matter. So you have to make sure that like just because you maybe can't get into an Ivy League school, you still need to have superior grades to be able to get into that next tier of academic level school while also being a really good baseball player. Very rarely is it going to be like, yeah, he's got great grades I'm going to recruit him. It's going to be, this is a really good baseball player.
We're going to match the grades to what it is that we need to do.
And when we talk about support, and I know we talked about at the top of the show, but we talk about support and all those things. Like you still, to be very clear, you still have to be a competitive student in the general admissions standpoint to be admitted to these schools, right? Like you can't be a kid who's going to be a 30 and a 950 and be admitted to Brown or be admitted to RPI. You still have to be a super. You have to be a really good student where you're going to be competitive enough in the admissions process for, for the coaches to be able to take your stuff to admissions and say, hey, this is the kid that we really, really want and we want to support him through the admissions process.
You, you have to be uber competitive in that process. It can't be.
There's a floor that they're not, they cannot go under, right? So like you need to make sure that if you, if you want, if you aspire to play in the Ivy League or the super high academic, like you bare minimum, we're talking like a 3, 85 with APS and honors and a 13 plus sat 31 to act so like that, that like that's the realm in which you need to be in anything under that. It's going to be really hard for those coaches to bring that stuff to admissions to get that guy admitted.
[00:09:35] Speaker C: I think the other thing too, just to, to be very clear, Keith was about to hit on it. But just because a school is Division one in the high academic world or the school is Division 3 in the high academic world, doesn't mean that the standard that they can get in is changed because it's Division 1 or Division 3. So just because it's a Division 3 school doesn't mean, oh well, Hopkins can get lower in than Brown, we'll say as a supported student athlete. To be honest with you, a lot of times it's actually the opposite. You know, and I know from dealing with a lot of higher academic families, like one of the things that they'll, well, you know, Division three, you know, it'll be easier. We can get them in. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's actually, a lot of times it's actually the opposite. So don't get yourself tied into Division 1. Ivy League equals blank Division 3.
You know, those conferences we just Named equals blank.
You have to know what you're doing. You have to know what you're looking at.
Or somebody in your inner circle has to know what they're looking at to tell you and to guide you.
This is the path. Or this is more the path because just because you've placed or somebody has played for you and you. They've gone to XYZ school doesn't mean that that person has any knowledge of what's going on and can really guide you into.
These are the schools you need to be focused on. These are the schools are. That are realistic, and these are the schools that are not realistic. Because that's a huge part to this whole thing is, is what's not realistic as well. Because there's only so many guys out there that are going to be able to play at a super high level that are a 35 or 36 or a 1500 or above that. Like, you're, like, you can look at them and say, yeah, the whole board's kind of wide open for you.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah, a good comp of the different levels, right? And like, I think of Brown and then I think of Division 3 schools that have kind of a similar culture and a similar reputation as Brown, and like Swathmore and Haverford are two that kind of come to mind.
And I can tell you that the admission standards at Swarthmore and Haverford are probably higher than they are at Brown.
[00:11:59] Speaker C: Not even close.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Or at least, at least very comparable. And I mean, Swarthmore routinely is the top five liberal arts school in the country. Like, and it's a really good point, like, it doesn't get any easier to get in at those schools. In fact, in a lot of cases, it's harder.
It
[00:12:15] Speaker C: is harder because
[00:12:16] Speaker A: they take lesser kid, they take fewer kids.
Their system at each school is different. Right. And that's the other thing that's really hard to unpack with all of this is that there are some kind of guidelines, right? Like you mentioned, like, in the Ivy League, there's a general.
There's this, this AI thing that if anybody tells you they know exactly what that is, they don't. Because there's coaches who've been in the Ivy League for a decade who still can't give you a straight answer on that. But there's a general system in place that assigns a value to each player coming in. But every single program is different, and it's not necessarily based off how selective that school is for admissions. Brown's system could be harder to get kids in than Yale's despite the fact that Yale's admission standards on paper are a little bit harder than Browns. Like, there's different priorities. It's the same thing within the nesc and it's the same thing with a lot of these other schools that they have their own kind of proprietary system that they have to operate in to help kids get in. And each one of those is unique, right? We had our own unique one at Vassar that has since changed. They're very distant. They're very distant system now.
And those are some of the nuances that can make it really hard to, to unpack some of this stuff and kind of figure out where you fit. But having an understanding of it is wildly valuable in the high academic world because you can immediately cross off some schools knowing like, hey there, they will not. It doesn't matter how much they like you, they can't get you into school.
You could be the best player in the freaking country, but if you don't meet a certain standard, you can't get into school. Just like you could be the best student in the country, but if, if you're right handed and you're 74 to 76, like you can't pitch at any of these schools that we're talking about. So
[00:14:11] Speaker C: the one thing here, I don't want to keep going on this, but the one thing, and I think this is like the most important, if you're a parent, listen to this, okay?
Don't spend unless you have like free time that you wanted to spend on this and you just want to just, you know, worry about it. If you're a parent of a player and you're saying, hey, we want to. Our goal is to get our son to an academic school, to an Ivy League school. Do not spend any time reading about what the academic index is. Do not spend any time looking in on it on Google, buying books on Amazon.
I'm telling you this, if you want to get one thing out of this whole call, this is it. Don't waste your time. Just worry about getting your son as good as possible and make sure he gets as good as grades as possible.
And you'll spend a heck of a lot more time and energy on stuff that actually matters.
The index, you won't figure it out, I promise you. You can't figure it out like I did it, I did it for five years. You can't figure it out. Don't worry about it. Just get your son as good as possible. Make sure his grades or her grades are as good as possible and let the cards, sort as they may, don't worry about trying to figure it out.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: It's incredibly true. Right? Like, we've had. I've had people that we've worked with that, you know, they'll. They'll chat GPT it or clot it and be like, well, it says that he's going to be in the third tier of the AI and it'd be fine. I'm like, no. Like, you can try to do this all you want. And like, you've been on this podcast an inordinate amount of times because we love you and you're really good at this. We've had Eric on two of my best friends in this world that I've known for a really long time. I was Eric's personal catcher. I still do not know what the AI is at all of the Ivy League schools he's coached at. And I don't know what Browns was when you were there.
Like, I. I don't. So, like, and people, like, I think people look at Andy and I when we say this, and they're like, that's not true. It's like, no, it's 100 true. Like, we don't know what it is. Like, there. There's literally no sense in trying to figure this out because it, A, it changes year to year, and B, like, you. You have no idea what actually goes into this and what each program has to do to. To. To meet the AI so, like, they're trying to figure this out is like trying to figure out who shot Kennedy. Like, you're not going to do it.
Like, let's just focus on being as good of an academic student that you could possibly be and being the best possible baseball player that you could be. And let's see where it happens, because maybe they can get you in. And we. And I, and I know this to be true in. In a lot of high academic schools, like, there's some years where you can get some people in that you weren't able to get in in years past, and then fast forward the next year and it's like, you know, or that. No, that. That. That. That's a no. The kid that you were able to get in the year before is no longer a kid that you can get in. And not to say that, like, we're splitting hairs at that point, but, like, it's so true at that level of academics where, like, the same thing we talk about with the baseball and everything, like, the margins are so thin that, like, they'll change in a year and be like, yeah, no, that, that kid that got in last year, like, not getting in this year. Sorry. Like, like, it's got to be a better student athlete. Okay? And, and like, from a coaching perspective, there's nothing you can do about it. Like, you, you are beholden to what it is that admissions is going to tell you. Like, there's nothing where they're going to be like, yeah, no, we really like you and we really want you to be successful, so we'll let this kid in. Like, yeah, no, like, you, you are beholden to what the admissions process is going to tell you. And which is why when you go down this road in a lot of these schools, like, that's why they're going to ask for your transcripts and your test scores and all those things early. Because they don't want to waste their time either. Like, they want to get it. They want to at least have a pretty good idea of like, you know, and maybe you are that fringe kid where in, you know, after two, three conversations, like, hey, man, like, we don't know if we're going to be able to get you into school. You might have to retest or you might have to do XYZ in order for you to be admissible here. But if it's a kid, that's going to be a flat out no. It's like, hey, man, like, we brought your stuff to admissions. Like, it's a no here. Like, sorry to tell you that, but, like, don't want to waste your time. Don't waste our time. We're going to move on here. So, you know, there are some pluses and minuses to that, to this process, but I think at least in the academic world, you're going to have a pretty good idea of, you know, you're going to, I shouldn't say a good idea of where you can get in, but you're going to have really good ideas of the schools you're interested in, of being able to be honest with you in that process of whether or not you're going to be there and whether or not they're going to go down that road with you further.
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[00:19:54] Speaker A: and all this, all this talk about the admissions process like, kind of leads nicely into the complexities of building a roster out when you have limited bullets that you can use, right? So I experienced this at William Mary, so I can definitely, definitely talk about this. Like we didn't have the flexibility to if we had a guy on scholarship, like, we couldn't cut that kid.
So if you make a mistake, like you don't get a redo. Where in today's world, it may have changed since I've not personally asked Rob McCoy about how the admission stuff works or what their policies are anymore. But in today's world, the vast majority of college baseball, it's a one year agreement and you have a lot of different mechanisms to correct your mistakes. You can tell guys that they're no longer a part of the program. You can recruit over top of them, you can go get junior college players. You can go and you can leverage the portal. Um, that's not the case in these high academic schools, specifically at the Division 1 high academic schools where you might only get seven or eight supported spots with the admissions process, which doesn't even get you to the minimum roster in Division 1 baseball right now, doesn't even get you to 34.
So once, like if you're say Brown and you get eight guys a year, like you can stay at 34, but most of these schools don't get eight every year. So like you're going to become, you're going to go below the roster. And what I'm driving at here is that it makes the recruiting process and how you construct your roster really, really important.
Because you can't just go and fix it like other schools can in the portal and junior college, you don't have the ability to do that. And it's, it's something that I think players need to understand that going into each class there are some staples like you're probably going to get four, you're probably going to look for four arms, but how many of those arms are Going to be left handed pitchers, right? If you're building out a staff over the course of four years. And Jonathan, you were pitching coach, like probably don't want to staff all right handed guys. Like, probably need to mix in some lefties. So like at a certain point you need to make a decision like, all right, we're recruiting a 2028 class and we're losing two left handed pitchers. Like, we have to bring in at least two left handed pitchers in that class.
Or we've recruited a catcher in three straight classes. We can't recruit a fourth because we need to bring in a third infielder or we need to bring in two outfielders in this class. It gets really, it, it gets really detailed and you have to be very thoughtful. And it's the other limiting factor. Like when people go through this process, they think of, well, it's the academics and it's how good I am at baseball. Well, the third limiting factor here is that these guys just, they can't just pull together as many good players as they want. They have to be more thoughtful with how they construct their roster.
And that gets lost in the conversation frequently.
[00:23:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. There's no redo. There's no redo. There's no what, what you, what you get, you got for four years. Like, that's just the way it works. So, you know, you're, you know, is there some flexibility? Right. You use like the 8 and 7 number. It's pretty much the hot numbers, I would say, you know, for most of those schools.
So. But like, you know, in spot eight, can you be a little bit flexible? Yeah, we can take an arm, we can take a position guy, we maybe take a bat.
You could be a little bit flexible. But like for some schools, maybe they only have seven and six because the way it works is it's a four year cycle. So you may have seven and then six, you know, every other year. Like, have you got six guys? You're getting six guys. I did it with six guys. There ain't no flexibility. Like, you're, you know what, you got one outfitter, one infielder, a catcher and three arms. Like that's just the way it works. Like, there's no, there's no deviating off that.
But you know, the, the hard part for guys to understand is like, Yo, I'm a 2029 catcher.
Cornell is my dream school.
You know, Cornell might not take a catcher in 2029. And I don't know this, I'm just using this as an example. They might not Take a catcher in 2029. So you could be, you know, Yadi or Molina back there. It doesn't matter if they can't take a catcher or they can't take a XYZ thing.
It doesn't matter how good you are. Like, they just can't do it. And you can't just be like, oh, we're just gonna make a, you know, caveat. We're just gonna, we'll figure it out later. Or you can't do it because the math doesn't math then. And you eventually have to get, you have to get caught up and like, you, then you don't have any depth. And like, again, like, there's no, like, oh, we'll just go and fix it next year. You don't get in it. There's no next year. Like, because they tell you four years out, this is your four year window. This is what it looks like. So like you're building your roster out of like, for the most part, like, yeah, like, things could change. You know, hey, I need a shortstop. Hey, we need a third baseman.
You know, things could change like in, you know, in some. A little bit, a little bit of variation here, a little bit of variation there. Again, if you're working with eight spots, like some schools have nine right? There's another, there's. There's one school that gets nine right. Like you get nine. Like, it's a lot of guys. Like, I can tell you, like, that's a lot. So you have some flexibility on the back end. Yeah, we can just go take a left handed hitter and where we can maybe take two catchers or, you know, we can take an extra pitch or whatever the case may be. But for the most part, like you said, Andy, like those spots are those spots and like guys have it mapped out. We have to have it mapped out. Like. And again, there was some variation to it, but you kind of had a map that like looking at your roster, where is it sit today?
Where are you going to be at, you know, in nine months or ten months of graduation?
Where are you going to be at next fall from what your, you know, your 20, 27 class looks like? And then that's going to determine what 28 and 29 is going to look like in terms of the exact numbers and the breakdown. So it's very, very, very specific, especially in the Ivy League. It's very, very, very specific, positional to what they need. And there's no, not a lot of deviating where it's like you walk up to a field if you don't work in that world and you're like, yo, that's the best player here. Doesn't matter. We have two short stops. Like, that guy's better than two of them. So we'll just go and recruit him. Doesn't work that way, especially not in the Ivy League.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And it doesn't really differ that much down at, down at the Division 3 level. We're p. We're not really mentioning the Division 2 level for folks who are listening, because there just isn't any schools at the Division 2 level who fit this criter
[00:26:42] Speaker C: School of the minds is about it.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Yeah, they're super unique, but it's a good point.
[00:26:50] Speaker C: One,
[00:26:50] Speaker A: the, the other thing that's. That is interesting too is that if you have a kid who leaves the program.
Right. And this has changed a little bit because of the portal, because the Ivy League has had some guys leave recently. A couple.
So the conversation around like, hey, can we get a transfer in? Has become a thing a little bit. But general rule of thumb is that if you have a guy who leaves your program voluntarily.
Right. Like a kid who's a freshman is just like, hey, I can't handle all of this. I can't do the work that's required of me at said Ivy League school and be a baseball player. I'm going to go the academic route. I'm into school.
You don't get to go to admissions to be like, hey, we had a guy leave. So, like, can we get an extra spot in this class?
Like, I don't know, maybe Brett Beretti or John, your cow can. Because they at those schools forever. And like, maybe they're. But general rule of thumb, like, you don't get that type of flexibility with your roster.
With that lack of flexibility. Right. We hit on how difficult it is to try to plan this stuff.
Tell me, talk a little bit about this for both you guys. Talk a little bit about how valuable it is to be such an elite student that getting in on your own is a possibility at places.
[00:28:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it's a game changer. Like, you know, I mean, I, we would, you know, we would talk to guys that, you know, were applying, whether it was ED1 or regular, whatever it was. But like, you know, if, if there was a guy that was able to get in and you know, some schools have more flexibility, to be honest. This is where, like, it goes a little bit, varies a little bit. Like, some schools have a little bit more flexibility where they can know about a student. Student quote unquote applies on their own, they can go to admissions, and admissions would, you know, maybe help a little bit.
I know from personal experience where I worked and the five years I was there, we had none of that. They didn't answer the call. They wouldn't respond to us. They didn't care.
I. I can give you multiple examples of things that I thought was slam dunks, you know, that were going to be admitted on their own and they were denied. So if you're able to get somebody in on their own, it's a game changer because it changes how you practice.
You know, like I said, we. We operated 7,676.
So, you know, you're looking at 28 players and 26 players. 26 players. I'm sorry, 26 players in one year. I think we had 31, like one year where we did get, like, there was like two or three guys that got it on their own.
I think we had like an extra spot the one year they gave us an extra spot or something. But it is so valuable if you are in that, like that. Those numbers I was throwing out earlier, straight four, you know, eight, 10, APS, 35, 36, 15, 50 and north, like, and you're able to get in on your own.
You are so valuable to one of those schools. So, you know, if you're in that area code, like, that's a conversation to have. And again, it's good to have somebody that can talk to, you know, a school about that. I mean, I had multiple conversations with a pitching coach that's no longer there, but at a very, very, very good school in that league. And like, we would have conversations all the time about, like, he's like, yeah, they would get in. Like, we'll take them. They'll be uniform, though. They're on the roster because we can't get to the 34 number.
We'll take them.
So if you are able to get in on your own, like, it's, it's a, it's a huge game changer.
However, it's extremely difficult to kind of play those cards.
But yeah, I mean, if you're able to get guys in on their own, I mean, it changes, like I said, it can change how you practice, it can change how you prepare week, you know, day to day and week to week, you know, in season, like, it's a total game changer. Be able to get guys in on their own. If that's, if that's a possibility.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a little different, obviously at the Division 3 level. Because you're not beholden to. Most schools are not going to be holding to the roster limit unless it's self imposed.
But I think there is something to be said about the Division 3 level at the high academic world where kids apply to the school and are accepted and kind of what we're seeing now right under the new rules, where kids have an entire full year to develop again and they pop in their senior year, where it helps a lot of the higher academic schools where, you know, you don't have roster limits, maybe you saw a kid in the fall, you know, the summer and the fall, the previous year, and you know, there was something there that you like, but he just wasn't quite good enough yet for your program.
And the kid ends up applying anyways. You stay in contact, he applies. Hey, let me know what happens. That kid gets in and then come April, he emails you and he's like, hey, I'm 85 to 87. I'm, you know, 86, 88, or I'm hitting three, you know, hitting 427 with five bolts. And all of a sudden it's like, whoa, wait a minute, like this was not what I was expecting.
And you can go down that road to the kid a little bit further because it's like, hey, I already saw this kid play.
He did some things I liked. I thought he was a tad bit short. But on the video and the stats and the, the, the phone calls I'm making, this kid has made the jump and you can have a conversation, say like, hey man, either I'll guarantee the whole fall or I mean, shoot, if it's good enough, you don't have anything to waste. Like, I'll give you a full year to prove that you belong in this program, which is what most people are going to get at the Division 3 level anyways. Right? Like you're, you're more or less guaranteed your first year. As long as you can hold your weight and you're doing everything it is that you're supposed to do, you're going to remain in that program, you know, So I think it's huge at the Division 3 level for that to happen because you have, you can end up with guys that you were not necessarily anticipating having in that class that bolster your class and make it better. I can think of a handful of guys at RPI, probably eight, to be honest with you, in my 10 years there that we got super late because they got into school on their own and because of their development, what they did in the off season. They made that jump during their senior year, and then you see the fruits of their labor and you can go ahead and be like, hey, man, like, I saw this kid enough last year where I liked enough, but now he's made the jump and this is a kid that I can go after, you know? And whether or not they end up at your school, like, there's plenty of guys, there's probably more than the eight that ended up at RPI that I had offered that I really liked, that made that jump and got in on their own and ultimately ended up going to other schools.
But there, there's a substantial amount of student athletes that can get it on their own at a high academic Division 3 school that can make that jump during their senior year and ultimately end up playing Division 3 baseball and having really good careers. I mean, I had. I mean, shoot, I had.
I had the picture of the year in that conversation.
I've had multiple all. All league players. Like, and not just guys, the roster, right? Like, I'm talking guys that were serious contributors that were in that subset of student athletes that were able to get it on their own.
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[00:35:34] Speaker A: Well said. I was, I was actually going to ask you that exact question of, like, hey, walk us through how this was impactful for you as a former Division 3 head coach at a really selective school. So, granted, we've been doing this long enough.
Figured you might end up going down that route.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Yeah, no, but it is. And I think a lot of people, just to add to it a little bit, like, I think a lot of people worry sometimes, especially the Division 3 level, that it gets too late, right? Like, it's too late. Like, people aren't recruiting Me, like, I would say, like, apply to as many schools as apply to all the schools that you like. You don't have to apply to every school in the country, but apply to a lot of schools that you have serious interest from an academic standpoint and see what happens in the next couple months. Because if you put your head down and go to work, because you don't have to, the, the overwhelming majority of those schools, you don't have to submit your deposit until May.
So you have March, April, and a good portion, you know, some of May to be like, hey, this is where I'm at and this is what I'm doing.
And that can seriously move the needle, especially in today's day and age where you get to the end of the year and it doesn't matter what division you're in. Like, you might know that you need, you need to fulfill, you know, another three, four spots, or maybe there was a guy who got hurt, you know, who blew out during the year, and that kid's going to be down for a full year, like, hey, man, I'll take this kid that's going to come in right now in the spring or, excuse me, in the fall and be able to pitch for us next year. Like, yeah, let's do it. And if you've made the jump, you know, it can be really. I think it's a lot more fruitful at the Division 3 level than it is at the Division 1 level. But, you know, apply to the schools, put your head down, go to work, see where you get in, and then reach out to the coaches and be like, hey, this is where I'm at, you know, in the spring and let them know what's going on, because it can legitimately move the needle because you don't know what's going to happen in their program over the course of the next seven, eight, nine months.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, we talked about some of the stuff that, some of the limiting factors that the Ivy League and some of these high economic schools have with the admission standards in the rosters and how they've kind of all set up, right? You got the roster limitations, you've got the admission standards. You, you've got all that kind of stuff. Now you need to be specific with your admission spots.
On the flip side of that, one of the benefits specifically at the Division 1 level is that they don't really have to deal with, any of, you know, they, they really haven't been negatively impacted by any of the new recruiting rules.
You know, they don't have to worry about nil money non factor like it's not even a part of the equation.
I'm sure there's a lot of coaches across the country that would, would, would enjoy not having to, to deal with that even at the highest levels, you know, but they don't have to deal with that complexity. They don't have to deal with kids leaving the program very often. There's been a few cases recently, right, but you're talking a couple a year maybe that leave the Ivy League or, or leaving the Patriot League to leave those type of educations. Right. You get them here and there, but it's much less of a concern. And you also don't have to be portal shoppers is often which I think is desirable for a lot of reasons. So I don't think it's had a huge impact if at all across, you know, these, these, these schools. And I think in some ways you could say that they probably have benefited from it. I think the trickle down effect in the competitiveness has probably helped a lot of the schools at the Division 3 level. I think that they are picking from some kids that are a little bit better.
But one of the rule changes I do think has a chance long term to be a huge win for all the kids who are playing really high academic baseball, Ivy League, Patriot League, anywhere that doesn't, anywhere that has a degree that we talked about on the front end but doesn't have graduate school or in the Ivy League's case, you can't go to graduates, you can't play as a graduate student. Right. This new 5 for 5, I think that is a massive win for these guys because it opens up so many doors for them for that fifth year because they're how good, how good a students they are. And I think we talked about this on one of our podcasts.
It wasn't this year, it was the prior year when Duke lost in the super to Murray State and we had spoke preseason about how we thought Duke was going to be a real problem because they were so old and they were old because they were plucking all the best players from the Ivy League and they were all going down to Duke to get a master's degree that paired up with their, you know, their Wharton degree or whatever it was going to be.
But I think this new five for five, I think it's got a chance to be a huge win for a lot of these kids. What do you guys think?
[00:40:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's a game changer, honestly. Like, I mean it's awesome because you Know, it gives kids an opportunity to basically have two careers, right? Like, you're not, you're not thinking about transferring, you're not thinking about going into the Portal. Like, you know, I've said it to a couple guys like, yo, you go there for four years, you worry about graduating, kick butt, do as good as you possibly can go, you know, as good as you can possibly do. And then, you know, then you have the opportunity in your fifth year to do whatever you want. Like, you could do anything. You know, you already have, you know, a degree from, you know, one of the best schools in the whole world. Like, you, you literally can do anything you want. You can play at the highest level, you can go somewhere different. You can go to a state that you never thought you would live in. Like, you could literally do anything. So it's an amazing opportunity because you graduate in four years, you get through, you have, you know, hopefully you get to a couple regionals at an Ivy League school, you play at a super high level, you have a ton of interest, you know, when you, when you go into the, you know, into the Portal as a grad student. And, you know, you can kind of choose your path, you know, And I think, I think if you ask a lot of 21, 22 year old kids that are seniors, you know, in college that, you know, did it especially, I know, you know, guys our age, right, you said to them, hey, you know, you just exhausted, you know, your eligibility at this school. You can't do anything else here, that this is it. Like the Ivy League says you cannot do it here.
The world's at your fingertips. Do whatever you want. It's kind of cool, right? Like at 21 or 22 years old to be like, wow, I get to go through this process again.
And like, now I'm gonna get, you know, especially if you have a really good career, right, like now I'm gonna get basically courted by anybody who's, anybody in college. Baseball, Duke, you know, you could go and go play at Hawaii. You could go to Rice, you could, you know, go to Stanford. Like, you could do anything. You do anything you want. And I think it's amazing. I think it's awesome. I think it's so cool for the kids.
I would say it, it's, it's got to be, you know, one of the coolest benefits for a kid to that goes into the Ivy League that they can basically do this, enjoy their career, not have to worry about the Portal. Not have to worry about what, you know, 95% or 97% of the rest of the country is going through with year to year stuff can go and just enjoy their four years. And then at the end of the four, be like, here you go, good luck, man. You can go. You know, I guess the beginning of their senior year, we'll call it, so three and a half and then go explore what you want to do, you know, next year. And, and nobody's upset, Nobody's, nobody's, nobody's mad at you. Nobody's. Hey, you're leaving the program. It's all good. You're going to have senior day. You're going to get your senior debt. Like, you get all the benefits and then you get to go get courted and you get to do it again. And you get to do it again.
Again. Choosing a 21 or 22 years old to do it, how you want to do it at that time, which might have been different than you were at 17, but you have a degree that will literally serve you the rest of your life. And now you get to do kind of whatever you want. Your last year playing pretty good.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: We, we've seen some guys recently take a variety of different paths when it comes to this. It's coming out of the Ivy League, coming out of the Patriot League. Guys who have chosen like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to Duke and I'm gonna stay on the super high academic path. I'm gonna go to a Stanford or I'm gonna go to a Northwestern, right? But then we've also seen guys, a couple guys from Penn, Columbia, guy going to Texas A and M, baby, like, this is just about baseball for a year. I'm just going to go down there and I'm just going to play baseball. A couple of those guys made some money doing it. Hayden Shot became a Twitter celebrity because he's absolutely hilarious and smashed and was a fan favorite down in Texas and Ambut, yeah, they just kind of got the world at their fingertips. And if you're really good in these settings, right, and this goes for a lot of the Division 3 guys, like if they ultimately do pass this down to the Division three level, the five for five, right. If you're a really good player. And there's a lot of examples of guys because of COVID they might not make the jump from Rochester to A and M, but I'm using Rochester as an example. Like Rochester's had some guys go from Rochester to Richmond and be really good. The Nescac has had some guys go from, you know, Colby to Northeastern you know, Amherst to Richmond is just another one that popped into my head. But like the guys who are really good at that level, they free themselves up to go and experience something that they didn't have the opportunity to experience out of high school. Just like most of these Ivy League guys, they, they weren't coming out of high school, they would have gone to Duke. They probably weren't good enough to go to Duke at the time. But Fast forward to 21 years old and you've got a, a four year resume in the Ivy League. Well, yeah, you're pretty, like you're, you're a pretty courtable fella at that point. In terms of one year assassin, you're probably really mature, you've pitched a lot or you've played a lot.
You're not going to be an issue off the field academically.
Like you are as low risk of a recruit as you can possibly be.
I think it's awesome. I think it's, I think that, I think some of these schools at Duke and uva and Stanford and Northwestern, like schools who can go into the Ivy League and have like a legitimate academic draw, I think they will benefit from this long term as well. Because if you want to double up on really powerful degrees, you know, going from Princeton to Duke is a pretty good way to do it.
And then you can go play pro ball if you're really good. But
[00:46:30] Speaker B: yeah, I think the other side of it too is the, and we've talked about this on the podcast, so I'm not going to beat a dead horse. But since it's academic, we'll mention it. Like if you're a Division 3 guy that, you know, maybe you're not, you don't have the chops to jump into the Division 1 realm.
But a good portion of Division 3 schools have five year master programs, right? So like you can stay for that fifth year. And the way that the majority of them do work is that you apply while you're in undergrad, you get accepted, and then your financial aid package stays for all five years because you don't technically graduate until that fifth year. So you're still an undergrad and you can still receive your financial aid package and you can get your master's in five years where, you know, Covid kind of, you know, had a lot of guys that jumped into it and did it because they got extra years to be able to play and they were capable of doing it. But now if Division 3 does jump to the 5 or 5, and I believe that they will, I'm not, you know, a future seer, but I believe they're going to do it because everyone else is doing it. And let's be honest, they don't want to get the NCAA doesn't want to continue to get sued.
You have the opportunity to go to a super high end academic school that has, you know, if they have grad school, just say like, hey, I'm, I'm going to stay at this school for five years, play baseball, have a great career and walk out with 2 degrees or on the flip side and you know, maybe again you don't have the chops to jump to the Division 1 level. Like you can jump to another super high end Academic Division 3 schools as a senior with a really good resume. And I'm, you know, like, let's say it's a Middlebury because I don't believe that they have a robust, if any grad program and go play at a Hopkins, right? Like you can go from one really good Division 3 program to another really good Division 3 program that are two super high end academic schools and get your master's degree and be able to play baseball for five years.
And that's awesome. Like you, you can, you know, you're going to be able to play at two different really, really good high academic schools and you know, be super desirable in the workplace if baseball doesn't work out for you because you have two unbelievable degrees from schools and you were able to play baseball and maintain a really good GPA for five years.
You know, so I, I think that's something to be, to think about too, that you, you have the, you'll have the capability at a good portion of these schools to be able to stay for five years and walk, walk out of there with two degrees and one being a professional, one that you know, I would argue with most people is, is probably better to do while you're in school, slash almost immediately after school and not waiting three, four, five years and trying to go back to school and being able to play baseball. Right. Like it gives you that opportunity to be able to walk out of a super high end academic institution with that. And you know, now again you have the life, you know, you have the world at your fingertips if you're capable of doing that.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: Speaking, speaking of the world at your fingertips, I think that's a pretty good segue into kind of the closing topic here is just how powerful the degree is from, from some of these institutions that we're talking about and how I think that I've seen some Twitter noise from Some sources that I'm not exactly fond of how they term this and how they're kind of leaning on it around how you should just the degree doesn't matter, like you're just paying to play baseball, blah, blah, blah, blah, which I think is really short sighted. Obviously college is expensive, but all things considered, there are some degrees, many of them in the realm of exactly what we're talking about that will set you up for the rest of your life.
Like absolutely. Game changing diplomas, game changing education at those set institutions, game changing alumni networks.
And I think it's really important for families.
Obviously money is always a factor in this because most of these schools, money is not going to be an option for you. Right. Unless it's Duke in Northwestern or Stanford, Notre Dame, Boston College, like very few of the schools that we're talking about are going to give you baseball money.
But if you have access to it and you are good enough academically and you're a good enough player, turning down one of these degrees to go and play a perceived higher level of baseball with the idea that you may slightly increase your chances of playing professional baseball, which is a.
Sorry to say it, but like you got a 1% chance of making this, literally a 1% chance. It's not hyperbolic of actually like making money playing college baseball.
I think it's very short sighted. Some of the conversations I've seen on Twitter, some conversations I've had with families in the past with just, just people in general kind of poo pooing, high end Division 3 high academic baseball, not realizing that if you graduate from the University of Chicago like your son and for other sports, your daughter, they're, they're good to go for the next 40 year, their 40 years of their life. As long as they just try a little bit.
Keith, you've been in this at RPI and you've watched your guys succeed because of that place post graduation and do some amazing things. And Jonathan, I know you've seen the same thing at Brown. Like can you guys talk a little bit about kind of the bigger picture of the high academic world and why having access to this is not only a short term win that could open the door for college baseball, but also the long term impacts of pursuing something like this.
[00:52:36] Speaker C: It is the club of all clubs. I say that all the time.
If you graduate from one of these schools, it will probably change the trajectory of your son's life, daughter's life.
There's, it's just, it's very hard to understate the importance of what that. That actually means. But it will.
It will set them up for a long, long, long time that they will be in a very, very, very good spot.
You, you, you just. It's.
You can't state it enough. I've seen it. I mean, we could talk about it all. We want the owner of the Milwaukee brewers, right? Or just want to, you know, World Series.
His name is at the field of Brown. It's because he donated the money to pay for that field.
There's a guy on his analytics staff that he actually was our student assistant at when I was at Brown. I remember when he was 17 or 18 years old, as a freshman, came to our office, wanted to be a student assistant.
Just. He'll be getting a World Series ring in the next few months. So. And there, and there. And there's other examples. There's CEOs, you know, on Wall street, there's, you know, CEOs around the world. There's CEOs around the world that no matter what, wherever life takes you, getting a degree from one of those types of schools is. It's always recognizable. It's always, it always plays.
And at the end of the day, I say it to guys all the time, like, you are going into a club of all clubs. There's, you know, people will go to special things. They're members at golf courses. This is, this is a club like no other club out there.
You know, when you get that, when you get a degree from one of these places. So, yeah, I mean, it, it, it's. It's hard to put into words, you know, when you see it at senior day, you know, I, I did it five times where you saw the Senior day and five senior days and, you know, almost every guy on the line was either getting ready to, you know, get drafted or getting a, you know, already had a job, you know, or had a, you know, job lined up or had a final interview, but, you know, talking about may of their senior years and they knew exactly what was going to happen, where they were going to go. You know, they had all that stuff set up. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's.
Again, I don't even know if I could put it into words. It's, it's, it's really, really, really. You're put. You're setting yourself up for a lifetime of a lot of success.
[00:55:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the, the one, the couple things. I'm not going to say the one thing. The couple things like the alumni network that you get out of these schools Is can't be understated.
When you're talking about a lot of these high academic schools, you're talking about schools that have been around for well over 100 years.
Like you have an alumni network that is robust, that you're going to be able to connect with a lot of people that are going to be able to help you out, right? Like, not saying it's going to always lead to fruition for you, but they're going to be able to help. You know, in my 10 years at RPI, there were three guys that didn't have a job by graduation and none of them were not without offers, right? Like, all of them were entertaining multiple offers. They just didn't really know which one to pick by the time they got to graduation. Like, that's, that's a lot. That's 10 years of, you know, we'll average it out to probably be like nine guys a year. Like that's 90. Did you know, it's probably more than that. But 90 to 100 plus guys that had jobs by graduation and that, that's hard to do because I think that when you go to these academic institutions and you can do really well academically while you're in college, while also being able to be really good and, and frankly, like I, it doesn't necessarily mean they have to be really good at baseball, just that you were able to withstand four or five years of playing college baseball and maintain a really good GPA and be physically fit and work within a team and be a leader and, and do all these things. Like that's desirable in the workplace for a lot of people because you already have a leg up on some of the things that they're going to have to teach you when you get there, you know, So I think that it's, it can change the trajectory of your son or daughter's life depending on, you know, the type of major and what it is that they want to do.
But the alumni network, the ability to be able to play and be desirable, the workplace, once you leave, like they, they legitimately want student athletes that are finding success in college, not only from an athletic but an academic standpoint.
Like companies are searching that stuff out, you know, so I, I would be hard pressed with, you know, with my kids and they're super young and you know, if, if they're, if they're in a position where they want to go to our alma mater or Yale or Princeton or Columbia, like, it's probably going to be a tough conversation with them, like, hey, look, Marist is awesome. It is amazing. I love it. But here's the thing. Like that degree that you're going to get at those other three schools is going to be better and more life changing than what it is that, you know, you're going to get out of Marist University.
And I hate to say that about our alma mater. I've, I've, I've benefited from inflation, but let's be honest, it's not an Ivy League school, you know, so it's, it, it can really, really benefit your, your kids moving forward. So like the, the price tag is a lot and there's a lot that goes into it and, and let's make no bones about it either Jonathan or Andy, like it's hard, like the academics at these schools are hard. You're going to get your ass kicked in the classroom.
So like you're going to have to, you're going to have to buck up and be really good. And the dividends that are going to pay forward on the, on the back end of being, being able to handle that are going to far outweigh how difficult and the sleepless nights and the things that you're going to have to encounter once you leave because you're going to be able to handle pretty much anything anyone's going to be able to throw at you. Which is why you see a lot of these people that have graduated from these schools that have played sports that are uber successful because they've been able to handle it, you know, they were able to handle it 18, 19, 20, 21 years old.
So when they get out there, it's like, yeah, no, this is nothing. I can make this work, you know, So I don't think it can be understated that the value of these degrees at a lot of these high end academic institutions are, you know, are well worth, you know, are worth the price of admission for you to be able to, to change the trajectory of your life.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: Well said by both of you.
That takes us to the end of our general agenda for today, but I do want to open it up for, for general remarks before we, we close this one out, but I think we did a pretty good job today. Anything, anything on your end, Jonathan?
[01:00:02] Speaker C: No, I think, I think we, we kind of hit the nail on the head there. I know we covered a lot and there's, like I said, I think the biggest thing, you know, to remember is, is that there's a lot of variation between divisions, between conferences, you know, definitely between sports. I can tell you that even, even at specific schools. So like, don't spend time worrying about the index and what your friend got in and what, you know, other people got in. Like, surround yourself, you know that, with people that understand how it works. You know, there's so many, so many people that do a great job baseball wise that, you know, can help, you know, help kids and coach kids and like. But if you really want, you know, that premier top end academic realm, like, you need to be around people that understand and can help walk you through what your transcript looks like, what do you look in a study, what are their needs?
Because it's a very, very, very fluid and there's a lot of moving parts that go into it and there is not, I can promise you, there is not one way to skin this cat. There's a lot of different stuff that goes on and you've got to be able to, you know, spend time and energy on things that matter and things that could be actually there and not just, hey, I think that I might want to go to the school.
And you get there, they love you and then they see your transcript and you wasted your time because you just flew from Southern California to Baltimore, Maryland and you can't get into Johns Hopkins.
So being able to spend time and money and effort on things that actually matter and actually really there is so, so, so important in this process.
[01:01:45] Speaker A: Anything on your end, Coach Glass?
[01:01:47] Speaker B: I do not. Jonathan hit the nail on the head there.
[01:01:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the only thing that I'll close with is just kind of piggybacking on what you're saying there. Jonathan, is it no matter how good of a student you think you are, no matter how good of a player you think you are, having a plan of attack and figuring out where do I need to be, when do I need to be there, how am I going to get in front of these guys, how can I get in front of these guys multiple times and attacking it intelligently and not with just a sweeping umbrella of like, I'm going to go to one showcase and all the guys from the Ivy League will see me like it needs to be.
This landscape across the board in high academic baseball is as it's. In a lot of ways, it's the most competitive little pocket of college baseball that there is because there's a lot of kids who would, who are banging down the door to try to get into some of these schools that just aren't going to be able to because they're either not good enough or they're not academic enough.
So having an edge, having a real true understanding of how this works, how it unfolds, having a plan going into next year, having a plan of how if your son's a 2029, how are you setting? And they want to go play in the Ivy League. Okay, good.
Let's start with, are you taking the right classes you want to go to. You want to go be an engineer, and you want to go to a school like rpi? All right, well, we need to get you on the right course academically because you need to check these boxes in order to be admissible into that engineering program. You need to take physics, you need to take your calculus. Whatever, whatever it is.
I'm stepping on your, your, your knowledge toes here, Keith, a little bit. But the point is, is that if this is something that you're trying to pursue, you've got time to get better as a baseball player. If you're a 2030 or you're 2029, 100%, like, you shouldn't even be close to where you're going to be.
But you don't get a redo on the academics and having somebody to talk to about how to set that path right? Like, that's a path that you, you generally don't get a redo on.
So it's more than just baseball.
It's more than just the development, it's the academics, and it's having a well thought out plan that is going to maximize your potential to get in front of and essentially get recruited by these schools. So just something to think about if you're a parent. Obviously, if you listen, you know how to reach us. But yeah, it's a, it's an awesome little secret hidden world of college baseball that I think all three of us are.
I would say that we're subject matter experts, given our backgrounds of the schools we've worked at and the, the people that we've been associated with for a long time as college coaches. So, yeah, thank you for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then.
Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
