Most top D3's are cold-weather schools

4thGen is about to spend his first winter in cold weather at Babson. It will be interesting to see how he handles it. So far the academic load has been a much bigger issue then the weather conditions.

quote:

Originally posted by 3rdgenerationnation:
So far the academic load has been a much bigger issue then the weather conditions.

Junior's been there, done that, got the book bag with the t shirt in it.

3Gen - School work is hard. Real world work is hard and college sports work is very hard. But just wait until you come up here and try to WATCH a game when its 35deg, overcast, and the north wind is blowing as the sun goes down. That's the hardest thing yet! You will wish your son was a swimmer! They don't tell us about that when they recruit our kids - haha

Son is looking at Jamestown College (NAIA) in ND. JC often gets to the regional and beyond.

Average high temperature in March is 36. Yikes.

I think you are missing the NAIA schools out on the west coast.

My son is a First Year at Williams and just now beginning to experience the cold weather. Just finished up with football on Saturday, took three days off due to a heavy midterm load and it's on to baseball workouts. Besides the excellent academics, coaches and students, he loved the fact that Williams has a two-week Spring break that allows them to play their first 18 games in Arizona. They don't play in New England until they play Dartmouth in Hanover on April 6th. He or I however have no illusions that it will be warm during April, especially for that first game in Hanover.

Your point is somewhat misleading. The majority of D3 schools are in cold weather locations; it only makes sense that performance follows the numbers. However; you will see that this is not really the case.

When you take a look at how D3’s are broken up by region you will see that the majority are clearly in cold weather locations.

Cold Weather Schools – 271 schools
Mid-Atlantic Region (Pennsylvania & New Jersey) - 57 schools
Mid-East Region (Eastern Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana & Michigan) – 50 schools
New England (CT & north) – 50 Schools
New York (the state is its own region) – 39 schools
Midwest (Wisconsin & Minnesota) – 35 schools
Central (Iowa, Southern WI & Missouri) – 40 schools

Warm Weather Schools – 78 schools
South Region (VA, NC, GA, AL, TN, MS) – 38 schools
West Region (WA,OR, CA, TX,AR) – 40 schools

With this kind of geographic distribution; you would expect far more of the top 30 would come from cold weather states. Yet 8 of the top 30 come from the southern or western region. Given the numbers themselves you would expect only 6 to come from those regions (3 from the south and 3 from the west). This is consistent with other divisions; where warm weather areas have a higher rate of success.

When you look deeper at the numbers 3 of 11 schools in CA are rated; 1 of 4 schools in Oregon and 1 of 2 schools in Mississippi. You have to look deeper into the numbers to get the real meaning of what is going on. D3 is heavily weighted in certain areas; which logically translates into both numbers and to a degree results.

What is important is what this means to kids looking to play baseball in college. Kids in the west and southern regions if you are not finding a place to play in your backyard you ought to be looking in the cold weather states; there are far more team which translates into far more opportunity.

ILVBB,
My post was unintentionally mis-leading. My point, which you expressed better, was that a majority of D3 schools are in cold weather locations.

A secondary point is that a surprising number of them are top-ranked nationally, considering the magnetism of warm-weather.

Burnt Orange,
Good luck to your son in the Purple Valley.

Thanks Freddy, He is enjoying himself and working hard. His Mother and I could not be happier. We have also been able to enjoy the Purple Valley a few times this fall. What a beautiful college setting.

.
We have seen this before in DI...

Pretty clear...if you are the NCAA administrators...This is an outrage...obviously the cold weather schools have a huge competitive advantage. Something has to be done. Parity and fairness must be served, at all costs. After study groups and carefully considering all options there is only one clear option...push the season back to New Years Day. Not only will this make it harder on the cold weather programs, slow down that juggernaut, but it will improve the recruting for those poor warm weather schools who currently can't compete.

44
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O44 be careful, they might make the warm weather guys start their season up north in the snow.

Freddy - thanks for starting this thread; in my opinion this is very important information that most HS players and parents are unware of.

Last week I spoke to a group of HS families (players and parents). The first question that I asked the kids was where would they like to play college baseball. The responses were what I call the ESPN 25 (the schools that are always on TV).

About 1/3 of the kids were HS seniors without a single offer for next year. When I asked if any had written, visited, talked to a coach of a D3; none had. The next question was had any written, visited, talked with a coach outside of Calif; none had.

My point is there are GREAT schools that want kids that can play ball; but chances are they are not in your backyard; especially for California kids.

In D3 there are nearly 4 cold weather schools for every 1 warm weather school. For kids in the west with less that 20 D3 schools (west of the Rockies); if you want a great education and the opportunity to PLAY baseball - you need to expand your horizons!

quote:

Originally posted by ILVBB:

In D3 there are nearly 4 cold weather schools for every 1 warm weather school. For kids in the west with less that 20 D3 schools (west of the Rockies); if you want a great education and the opportunity to PLAY baseball - you need to expand your horizons!

This is true. Boston and DC are less than 500 miles apart. I don't know how many D3 schools lie between them.

quote:

Last week I spoke to a group of HS families (players and parents). The first question that I asked the kids was where would they like to play college baseball. The responses were what I call the ESPN 25 (the schools that are always on TV).

About 1/3 of the kids were HS seniors without a single offer for next year. When I asked if any had written, visited, talked to a coach of a D3; none had. The next question was had any written, visited, talked with a coach outside of Calif; none had.


My point is there are GREAT schools that want kids that can play ball; but chances are they are not in your backyard; especially for California kids.

ILVBB,
Thank you for your posts and information on this topic.
More importantly, your effort to provide information/education locally on the National DIII opportunities is terrific.
That is just really great information you are providing. It is even better you are trying to open up, for others, opportunities of such a high quality both in the classroom and on the field.