2017_Grad posted:TE, really appreciate the reply!
1. I have verbally recieved the max scholarship for the Juco. The max is only about 15% of tuition.
2. This Juco is the highest level of baseball in the state, and only about 1hr away from home. No on-campus housing though. So it would have to be apartment living. The D3's are about 5 hours away in a different state.
3. Both coaches of the D3 schools have said they could "pull some strings" in regards financially if needed.
4. Both D3's have housing and lunch rooms, but they have 1,800 and 800 students respectively. Not very big towns around the D3's.
5. The field on my higher ranked D3 is a very short field. (320/305 lines and 385 center). That's a plus for me (1B/3B). Compared to the Juco at (330 lines, 400 center).
6. All places have good fields and facilities/weight room. And all the coaches seem like good people.
Sorry for the rambling but tried to get good info out there.
Is your son going through this recruiting process now?
Thank you very much!
There are some salient pieces of advice in this thread already. Do make sure that you try to make a decision based on things outside of baseball as much as possible. But, hey. If you go to the JUCO and things don't work out baseball wise, or you just can't stand it there, you can always move on to a four year school. Like I say, they will be there two years down the road. JUCO can be a place to try to prove yourself and leverage your way into a more preferable program for you.
Some people fall in love with a D3 campus, etc. and choose that route. D3s can be kind of brutal. a whole bunch of guys will show up for fall practice. You too will essentially be a walk on. The coach may still cut you. But nothing quite beats campus life. Have you fallen in love with campus life?
I think that if you find a college where you feel as though you fit-in this is indicative of it being an intellectual and philosophical/theological match for you, and is a good sign of it's possibly being right for you. That can sometimes be hard to judge, however, without spending time there in residence.
Again though, sometimes you muddle through a couple of years at a place where you don't fit in, in order to get to a place where you do.
Since you haven't committed to either of the D3s, it sound like you may have aspirations of something bigger and better. Am I wrong? I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
I'm going to edit my statement to take into consideration what Cabagedad said above. JUCO can most certainly be leveraged into much greater things - academically and athletically. Psych 101 is the same wherever you are. It's about where and how you finish
If you want to try to leverage JUCO ball into something bigger, hey go ahead. It's a calculated gamble that is not terribly risky. As the Atlanta Rhythm Section once said, "Life is a gamble, all along. The winners are losers who keep moving on."
As I stated before. We are almost certainly going to go the JUCO route. For financial reasons mostly. But it will be a great chance to parlay the experience into bigger things down the road.
All the best,
TE