Skip to main content

6 replies

Need Some Advice in North Dakota

W waynek10+ posts
I'm probably the only ND member on this site, but yes, there is baseball up here...remember Roger Maris? D. Erstad(Angels) and T.Haffner(Indians) are also from our great state. In any case, I've been following this site for some time because my son is a 2006 who I anticipated would get some recruiting attention. He has started as varsity SS since his sophomore year in one of our local high schools (1300+ students 10-12)and has played summer baseball (class A american legion)the last two years.

Now the calls have started coming. Three Iowa and Kansas DI Jucos have indicated full rides could be available if he applies for admission...I don't think we want to go the Juco route for academic reasons...my son currently has a 4.00 GPA. The University of ND(DII in BB and football, DI in hockey and a national college hockey powerhouse over the years)has been calling weekly. We visited there a couple of weekends ago and the coach said my son is a recruit but no BB scholarship money is available right now. They only fund 2.3 scholarships (most scholarship money goes to hockey and football) and those 2.3 scholarships usually are split between pitching recruits. He said if my son has another outstanding senior HS season (last year he hit .424 with a .674 Slug%) he might be offered a partial scholarship, or as a recruited walkon, he'll have a chance to earn some scholarship money. This is the college he really wants to attend for academic and other reasons.

To complicate things, the local 4-year private university (NIAA, but going DII beginning this year) has offered my son an academic scholarship which would cover nearly 1/2 of tuition for 4 years and an official visit next week that will be followed by, according to the coach, a BB scholarship offer on top of that. I have no idea what the amount of that offer will be considering what they have already offered for academics.

My concern is the local school will want to sign my son during the early signing period to preempt any other college offers that may come later. Should we wait or should we take what looks like what will be a quite attractive offer now?
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

PAbbMomPAbbMom100+ posts
Just my opinion, but my son found the overnight visits to be the determinging factor in at least deciding which school he felt was the best fit. I would recommend he do that at several schools first to see if the team chemistry is a good fit for him. I don't think they'll find that out on an official visit with the parents. At least then he may be able to cross some schools off his list. The money part is a personal issue and one that only you can determine but with a 4.0 GPA he sounds like he could get academic money to help defray some of the cost.
Surprisingly, some kids spend the weekend at their dream school and know immediately this is not the place they thought it was in their dreams.
M montanadad100+ posts
It looks to me like the local school does not become DII until the 2006-07 academic year. For this current year, they are still NAIA and thus not a part of the National Letter of INtent program.

If you want, you can check http://www.national-letter.org and you will see that the local school is not listed as a member institution, nor are they currently listed in the DII conference that they will be joining.

So from a purely technical standpoint, I don't know that they can even offer a NLI at this time. That would seem to be a disadvantage to the school, but perhaps an advantage to your son.

Having said all that, an academic scholarship of 1/2 with a baseball offer on top of that might be very difficult beat, especially if the other principle contender only funds 2.3 scholarships and by their own admission, most of those funds go to pitchers.

Best wishes to your son from your northern neighbor!
MN-MomMN-MomHSBaseballWeb Owner
Waynek,

Howdy neigbor, and welcome to the site! By the way, you asked "...remember Roger Maris?" ... my mother-in-law once dated Maris when he was playing in Hibbing, MN!

Congratulations to your son for having some great options for college and college baseball! I just wanted to add these thoughts to what has already been posted:

My sons are 04 and 06, and both of them changed their opinions on which colleges are the best fit based upon their visits. 04 RHP thought an in-state D3 that Mom and Dad liked would be too small. But after an overnight visit, that school migrated up to his #1 choice and he is now a very, very happy soph and baseball player there. 06 non-baseball-player (music major) had definitely decided in Junior year of HS what college he would attend, related to his very passionate goals for his music career. But based on some new developments and visits in Senior year, that school has moved down to #3 or #4 on his list and he is very excited about #1 and #2 which we were not even looking at a few months ago. So I just wanted to say: After some visits, your son's feelings about the schools will tell you more than some of the facts and figures.

By the way, we are big hockey fans here ... choose the school with the national hockey powerhouse - UND? Just kidding, but not kidding about being hockey fans. 04 son and ver-r-r-r-ry old MN-Dad still play, and MN-Dad is getting MN Wild hockey tickets for part of his birthday present today. Big Grin

Best wishes to your son!
W waynek10+ posts
As a NDSU alum, I have been in contact with the coach there. NDSU has just gone DI and does very little in-state recruiting. Their current roster only has 2 ND kids on it. One, a Gatorade Player of the Year winner at SS in HS, is riding the pine.

I feel my son is a bit small for DI and he certainly doesn't want to sit on the bench for 4 years after being redshirted.

Add Reply

Post

Membership Required

We're sorry. You must be signed in to continue. Sign In or Register
×
Are you sure you want to remove from your Block List?
×
Loading...
×
When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. Replies and comments they make will be collapsed/hidden by default. Finally, you'll never receive email notifications about content they create or likes they designate for your content.
Note: if you proceed, you will no longer be following .
×
Advanced Search
Advanced Search
Link copied to your clipboard.
×