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Due to injury my son is getting accepted to colleges academically rather than baseball recruiting. He just got accepted to Indiana. The Big Ten may be beyond his current ability given where he's at due to his injury. But every baseball opportunity needs to be examined.

From the website I can see the coach has been around six years, the team improved the past three seasons, they run middle of the pack and they don't pursue JuCo and transfer players based on this year's roster. What can anyone add regarding the program?

** The dream is free. Work ethic sold separately. **

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I am a big fan of IU baseball, mostly because Coach Smith has recruited hard in our area. I have not met Coach personally, but from what I can tell I would he is highly regarded from his players and staff. Take a look at some of the videos from Skip's Scoop. It seems like a pretty loose group, but still work very hard.

They have a junior in Alex Dickerson, who will be a very high draft pick this year.

Lefty...
Putting the baseball issues aside, If you haven't visited IU, do so before picking it and forgetting baseball make sure it is the right fit as you should with any school but curiously, especially IU in my opinion.

your location says mid-atlantic so not sure where you are. I am from the west coast. One of my kids went to IU and couldn't transfer fast enough. It's a real culture shock to any kid from a metropolitan area. The place is a confusing mix of the mid-west and the south.

HORRIBLE weather. Social life is absolutely DOMINATED by the greek system and liquor like no school I have ever seen. Never saw so many liquor stores in one small town in my life.

At football games 1/2 the fans watch on tv in the parking lot and 1/2 the stadium is empty. It is just bizarre. Basketball is king but their program has been in the dumpster for years.

Feeder school for Indiana High students, if you are from any where out of the mid-west they treat you like you are from Mars. The Wall Street Journal actually did a study of sorts of the culture clashes between the local kids and those from the east and west coasts. One of the oddest places I have ever been too.
Last edited by HeyBatter
cb12 you make a very valid point and frankly i was reluctant to post what i did as i didn't want to offend anyone. But, I've been to schools all over the country and most of the Big 10 schools/cities. IU/Bloomington just stands out to me as one of the oddest places I have ever been and the least welcoming to "outsiders" i have ever experienced.

Hello, looking for some info on Indiana University, this looks like the newest post about Indiana I could find. maybe the OP or anyone else can answer a few questions.

It sounds like your son attended Indiana and maybe played there?

  1. Do student athletes ( baseball players ) have their own dorm? What dorm did your son live in?
  2. Did he get to choose his own roommate, or did the coach assign him a roomie.
  3. Do baseball players have their own cafeteria, training table? Or do they eat the same place as non athletes?
  4. Do any of the players belong to frats? If so did your son join a frat? Are there baseball player preferred frats.
  5. What summer teams or leagues did your son participate in? Did the coaching staff allow options or was it stated here’s where you’re going?

Thanks in advance!

Everything in this post turned out to be true. Weather is relative to where you live. The team travels until March. A baseball player who is a serious student has little time to worry about the other stuff. My son did gravitate to a CA teammate (by coincidence we knew the family from when we lived in CA). Outside baseball his friends tended to be from east coast metro areas. Alcohol is prominent in and around the campus. This is the major distraction. A baseball player shouldn't have time to be involved. Smith was a rising star coach. He left for ASU. Lemonis, a highly regarded assistant at Louisville is the coach. My son loved it there. He did say returning to the east coast after college was like returning from space. I asked him several times. Are you sure you want to spend four years in a cornfield? He was there for five due to an injury and two degrees.

Last edited by RJM

The freshman athletes stay at Briscoe house boys and girls.The building is @10 stories or so.With a fairly large number of rooms on each floor.Each floor has one large room where the kids can gather up for whatever reason.Each dorm room houses 2 kids.The rooms are separated by a living room/TV room of sorts where the single bathroom is located.My guy has 2 other BB kids that share the TV room.Not sure how things are handled when the numbers don't work to keep same athletes in rooms.You need a IU ID card to gain access to the building along with getting the elevator to work.The BB kids are assigned for 1st yr. I am pretty sure the 1 juco kid is at Briscoe also. After freshman/first yr. The kids can get there own place.There are currently 3 baseball houses.Next yr. there will be 4.(I think) Baseball house is what the kids refer to them not me.All they are is a 3,4,5 bedroom house/townhouse/condo whatever you want to call them where all the kids in them are on the team.5 of this yrs. freshman will be in one of the houses next yr. 2 + blocks from school. There is 1 main/large dinning hall along with @ 6-8,10 satalite  food places.This is also the place where the weight room.conditioning room.As long as you have your IU ID you can eat anyplace on campos. The booze this is probably highly true. To correct this would be pretty simple. STOP the tradition/peer pressure whatever you call it of freshman having to buy for upper classmen. For coaches/people inside of the athletic dept. NOT to know this I would be willing to call a LIAR.I also don't think this is an IU thing.It goes on at a ton of other schools.Have a friend whos kid goes to in state school on BB team and this subjest might end up kid dropping BB. None of the BB players that I know of has time for belonging to frat.Kid will be playing in northwoods league this summer.Along with 4-5 other of freshman.I think all the kids are league area kids.(Il.WI.) which for me is a good deal.There is a freshman from NJ that will be playing out east this summer.Cape Code I think. In my guys situation coach said we have place x do you want to play there.When he heard IL. it was automatic yes. It does cost some.Along with helping out or getting something nice for host family. That is common sense I guess.I will not admit I would have known/do this without having this website.When talking to staff write everything down and reverify what you write down before leaving conversation.I will be honest My kid could have gone just about anywhere.He completely gets its the education but still wants the BB part. The one factor that pushed thing in saying yes was the schools not multiple hundreds of miles away.Along with Lemonis and his long ties to the Citadel.Our state school showed/had no interest in him.The OSU,A&M, WF type schools were great for him to talk to but in all honesty in our situation I probably would never get to see him play.I feel its a nice school/town. But who am I.One real negative is the road constructon for @ 12 miles or so getting in and out  going north and south.Not sure how they will be done before my freshman graduates.Its one real cluster.Really it can be worse than that.Hope this helps I also hope you and your family have a safe & great new year......................................................

proudhesmine posted:

The freshman athletes stay at Briscoe house boys and girls.The building is @10 stories or so.With a fairly large number of rooms on each floor.Each floor has one large room where the kids can gather up for whatever reason.Each dorm room houses 2 kids.The rooms are separated by a living room/TV room of sorts where the single bathroom is located.My guy has 2 other BB kids that share the TV room.Not sure how things are handled when the numbers don't work to keep same athletes in rooms.You need a IU ID card to gain access to the building along with getting the elevator to work.The BB kids are assigned for 1st yr. I am pretty sure the 1 juco kid is at Briscoe also. After freshman/first yr. The kids can get there own place.There are currently 3 baseball houses.Next yr. there will be 4.(I think) Baseball house is what the kids refer to them not me.All they are is a 3,4,5 bedroom house/townhouse/condo whatever you want to call them where all the kids in them are on the team.5 of this yrs. freshman will be in one of the houses next yr. 2 + blocks from school. There is 1 main/large dinning hall along with @ 6-8,10 satalite  food places.This is also the place where the weight room.conditioning room.As long as you have your IU ID you can eat anyplace on campos. The booze this is probably highly true. To correct this would be pretty simple. STOP the tradition/peer pressure whatever you call it of freshman having to buy for upper classmen. For coaches/people inside of the athletic dept. NOT to know this I would be willing to call a LIAR.I also don't think this is an IU thing.It goes on at a ton of other schools.Have a friend whos kid goes to in state school on BB team and this subjest might end up kid dropping BB. None of the BB players that I know of has time for belonging to frat.Kid will be playing in northwoods league this summer.Along with 4-5 other of freshman.I think all the kids are league area kids.(Il.WI.) which for me is a good deal.There is a freshman from NJ that will be playing out east this summer.Cape Code I think. In my guys situation coach said we have place x do you want to play there.When he heard IL. it was automatic yes. It does cost some.Along with helping out or getting something nice for host family. That is common sense I guess.I will not admit I would have known/do this without having this website.When talking to staff write everything down and reverify what you write down before leaving conversation.I will be honest My kid could have gone just about anywhere.He completely gets its the education but still wants the BB part. The one factor that pushed thing in saying yes was the schools not multiple hundreds of miles away.Along with Lemonis and his long ties to the Citadel.Our state school showed/had no interest in him.The OSU,A&M, WF type schools were great for him to talk to but in all honesty in our situation I probably would never get to see him play.I feel its a nice school/town. But who am I.One real negative is the road constructon for @ 12 miles or so getting in and out  going north and south.Not sure how they will be done before my freshman graduates.Its one real cluster.Really it can be worse than that.Hope this helps I also hope you and your family have a safe & great new year......................................................

Thanks for the responses.

Congrats to proudhesmine , best of luck on the freshman season. And Congrats to RJM, two degrees is fantastic. Hope he had a stellar baseball career there also?

My son is just a blimp on the radar so far, sophomore in HS with some interest from some programs. IU is one and one of his target schools. It sounds like the baseball program tries to accommodate the freshman players. Its good they have options on where to eat.

 One of his friends older brother went there ( non-athlete), he was involved in a frat there that got kicked off campus and a few of the members got booted out of school. We want to reinforce to son that maybe baseball and the frat life don't mix. I'm not naïve enough to think that there will not be any drinking involved but hopefully it will be kept to a bare minimum. Academics are #1 priority in this house and he understands that, but when 15-16 year olds hear the frat party stories the wrong brain starts thinking.

Maybe they don't but maybe they do. Some of it is choosing the right fraternity. My son did both (he did not play D1), I credit his experience at the fraternity as part of his maturation and growth as a young man. He learned to take on responsibility that he regularly may have avoided. They worked in the community and learned a bit about those not so quite as well off. It gave him experiences that he could not get in baseball. 

Not all Fratenities are equal. They are not for everbody, my youngest chose not to go that direction, however don't rule them out because of negative views held by many. Choose carefully as you would a college choice. 

Oh yeh.  Disco Brisco.  What a place. Of course those where the days of rotary dial phones.  

Back in the day we had a few athletes in our fraternity.  The serious ones lived outside the house.  We had a baseball player who I roomed with over the summer.  Don't think his workload was was it is theses days.  He was arround a lot. 

Bloomington is a great school town. Proximity to campus gives students good access to eating alternatives and other things.  Football is ok. Basketball is back.  As for living in a corn field, not even close.  One you get past Indy it's rolling hills.  You want corn go to Purdue, or better yet University of Iowa (friend used to call it the corn curtain).  

Once you get out of town going anywhere accept north its beautiful country.Lots of water.Lots of trees.I had never been that far south in the state till a couple of yrs. ago.I have spent lots of time in southern Il. tho. If one gets off the beaten path you can tell that a high percentage of the surface water is dried up/ gone. Looks like to me its all went to S. Indiana. Completely gorgous for a mid west state.

When I called it cornfield it was a generic reference to the middle of nowhere. My kids grew up in two major metropolitan areas. Its a long way from beaches and mountains. It's a potential cultural issue when we talk about college fit. My son loved it. I liked visiting.. But I wouldn't want to live there. It doesn't mean it's bad. It's just different and not what I'm accustomed. When I'm in Portland ME (part time due to mother) I try to sell myself it's the most northern suburb of Boston.

RJM posted:

When I called it cornfield it was a generic reference to the middle of nowhere. My kids grew up in two major metropolitan areas. Its a long way from beaches and mountains. It's a potential cultural issue when we talk about college fit. My son loved it. I liked visiting.. But I wouldn't want to live there. It doesn't mean it's bad. It's just different and not what I'm accustomed. When I'm in Portland ME (part time due to mother) I try to sell myself it's the most northern suburb of Boston.

I get it.  But try living in a cornfield once.  Ever see children of the corn? 

They really, really like promoting the fact that the school was established in 1820. Certainly nothing wrong with that. This thought crosses my mind everytime I go there. Just what was someone thinking when the decision was made to put/start the original state U there? Its basically 50 miles from anywhere. For the time span mentioned that was an obstical. A person might not think of that considering how things are in the auto age but 50 miles was huge back in the day.

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