quote:The issue I have with the coach's thinking is that it's one thing to expect that level of work when an athlete is fully scholarshipped, it's another thing when most all of the players are minimally scholarshipped or not scholarshipped at all. Basically, they are costing their players tens of thousands of dollars per extra year they have to stay at school.
Jones fan,
I cannot speak for all DIII's but I can speak for the one our son attended. The most recent stats I saw reported are that athletes graduated at a higher rate than the student body as a whole, 89% to 86%.
Of those student athletes, 100% graduated within 5 years. Most graduated in either 4 or 4.5 years.
Our son graduated in 4 years. His roommate graduated in 4.5 years. Each had outstanding experiences in the classroom, on the baseball field(both were 1st Team DIII All-Americans) and each developed in all the ways you would like to have happen in college.
In my view, developing in these ways does not relate to a baseball scholarship.
They don't exist at DIII, as you know.
In fact, I believe baseball and the baseball experience/coaches can facilitate a mental and time management approach that allows the student athlete to compete well and succeed on the field, do all the extra work to get better, and to manage his classes and academic progress.
When our son got to Milb, his roommate was a Stanford grad. In fact, while playing on a team that went to Omaha 3 times, he graduated with a double major, and he graduated in 3 years.
Academic progress and a fine college baseball career are not mutually exclusive, in my view. They are not dependent on a scholarship, or the amount of that money, either, in my view.