This Year's College Freshman Players

I guess Little Crawdad is doing fine at Navarro. He has made three appearances in relief and has gotten two saves so far this season. So far in 6 innings of work he has not given up any runs and only two hits. He only has four K's - the K's don't come very often anymore. But on the other hand, his defense makes ALL the plays.

I have not actually seen him play - I have seen three games but they weren't the ones he pitched in. Navarro is a very good team (9-1 so far) and they have alot of offense and good defense. In other words, a very good team to pitch for.

He is very happy he went there and is extremely happy with Coach Whoa Dill. He has taught him alot about pitching since he arrived on campus.

One other thing - at 6'2" 200 lbs, Brian is one of the smaller players on the team. College baseball players have sure gotten big over the past 20 years.

My son is going to Furman University a member of the Southern Conference. The main feedback that I haved recieved back was the difficulty of the school work. He tells me that so far reading 20 books this year is more than 18 books he has read his whole time in high school. The schedule is brutal- it starts every week day at 6AM for weight lifting and class begins at 8AM and finishes up at 2pm with baseball practice at 3PM. Baseball is usually over at dinner time. Mandatory study hall begins at 7Pm three nights a week.

He has been playing well in the fall and in preseason. He was one of the homerun leaders on his team. Hopefully as a Freshman he will get some playing time in the field or as a DH. He needs to turn any opportunities he gets to quality at bats.

The team opens the season on Monday February 25th against Tennessee in Knoxville. He is excited about his team and seems to be adjusting well so far.

I remember dropping him off at the end of August praying that he would be happy. I called him up a few days later and asked him how he liked it so far, he replied, "I like everyone I have met on my team so far except one person." I said who is that, He replied, " My Room mate."

My son is at El Paso CC, played 62 games in the fall and have already played 10 this spring.

He's platooning in right field and hitting the ball well.

To tell you the truth, I think he's burnt out on baseball. We'll see how it goes once they start conference play and the games start meaning something.

Josh Choate from Lewisville is the starting catcher and hitting the ball hard, like real hard. Josh should play his way off of the team this year and on to a D1 squad.

Justin Tramp is platooning at DH and trying to get healthy from a shoulder surgery. He should be released to start throwing soon. My son says that he hasn't lost his timing on his swing and doing great at the plate.

John Coin was converted to a submariner in the fall and is trying to regain some velocity.

Thanks for asking OP,

Adam is a LHP at UTA and is getting ready for their opener Friday vs Arkansas-Little Rock.

Through the Fall and early Spring he has thrown pretty good. Well...he has a uniform and hasn't signed any redshirt paperwork yet. From what I have been told, they plan on using him as a middle reliever.

So far, Adam is loving the college life and is building a great relationship with his teammates.
He really enjoys playing for Coach Thomas.

The one thing Adam has told me OP, is he has never worked this hard in his life. Tons of running and conditioning along with weights and alot of fundamental work.

One other thing, I would like to echo what Steve said, the difference in the high school and college player is great, a bunch of big boys (men) swinging and throwing.

I have given Adam a bunch of advice over the years, but this year he has to listen to his coaches. The only thing I told him was show his collegiate maturity and pat the young kid on the head, tell the fan in the stands thank you, and hustle in and out of the dugout, all when chasing and retrieving a foul ball.

My son is lucky enough to have Adam Boydston as his room mate at UTA. Adam has pitched lights out last fall and this spring, he should pitch a lot of innings this spring at UTA, he is a smart pitcher who makes a lot of hitters look bad, even at the D-1 level.

One of his biggest surprises is how well the upper classmen at UTA have treated the freshmen this season. The team has a very good chemistry which is somewhat surprising based on some of the rumors we had heard in the past. But it is a credit to Coach Thomas and Coach Sirianni who have worked very hard to improve things this year.

Although the requirements of a D-1 athlete can be difficult (early morning weights / mandatory study halls / practice, individual work outs / team activities / ...) , I will say Nolan Catholic prepared Mark very well for the academic side of college life. He worked his butt off for 4 years of high school, so far college had been easier than Nolan was. He knows the academics will get tougher as he get further into his major, but so far he has not had any problems there.

Probably the toughest issue Mark has had to deal with is burnout, not necessarily being burned out on baseball, just being burned out on all of the requirements placed on the team every day, you just don't have a lot of time to chill out every week. You really have to love to play to put all of the work that college baseball requires. The good news is the season starts Friday, playing games will be a lot more fun than practicing and lifting every day!

quote:

Originally posted by KellerDad:
My son is at El Paso CC, played 62 games in the fall and have already played 10 this spring.

He's platooning in right field and hitting the ball well.

To tell you the truth, I think he's burnt out on baseball. We'll see how it goes once they start conference play and the games start meaning something.

Josh Choate from Lewisville is the starting catcher and hitting the ball hard, like real hard. Josh should play his way off of the team this year and on to a D1 squad.

Justin Tramp is platooning at DH and trying to get healthy from a shoulder surgery. He should be released to start throwing soon. My son says that he hasn't lost his timing on his swing and doing great at the plate.

John Coin was converted to a submariner in the fall and is trying to regain some velocity.

KD:

Give the boys a hello from me. I always thought Josh would make a great catcher. Glad to hear that he and the other boys are playing well and enjoying their college experience.

quote:

the K's don't come very often anymore. But on the other hand, his defense makes ALL the plays.

quote:

I have not actually seen him play - I have seen three games but they weren't the ones he pitched in.

Welcome to college baseball..............

I picked on crawdad, here, but enjoyed all ya'lls updates very much.

quote:

extremely happy with Coach Whoa Dill

Yep, he's a good one.

A VERY good career path to Austin, TX...............

Good luck to all of you.

My son's really enjoying his experience. He has said the time and commitment involved are huge-I think more than he actually expected. He's made the comment if, last year, he knew half of what's he's learned so far this year, high school baseball would have been a whole different ball game. It's been great having an actual pitching coach, strenth/conditioning coach, etc.

When he was setting up this semester's schedule, his regular academic advisor set up his schedule-a really tough one! The baseball academic advisor saw it and said "I don't think so..." and completely changed it. It's nice having people there looking out for academics as well as baseball.

They leave for California this afternoon-luckily he doesn't have any classes on Fridays except one online. They get back Monday morning around 3:00am and they've already been told they WILL be in class on Monday morning. They turn around and leave again Wed. and will be gone until the following Wed.(luckily down here in Texas so we get to see some games!) I guess this is when this can really start getting kinda chaotic-sure hope he can handle it!

quote:

Originally posted by KellerDad:
My son is at El Paso CC, played 62 games in the fall and have already played 10 this spring.

He's platooning in right field and hitting the ball well.

To tell you the truth, I think he's burnt out on baseball. We'll see how it goes once they start conference play and the games start meaning something.

Josh Choate from Lewisville is the starting catcher and hitting the ball hard, like real hard. Josh should play his way off of the team this year and on to a D1 squad.

Justin Tramp is platooning at DH and trying to get healthy from a shoulder surgery. He should be released to start throwing soon. My son says that he hasn't lost his timing on his swing and doing great at the plate.

John Coin was converted to a submariner in the fall and is trying to regain some velocity.

Why do you think he is burnt out? Looking back is there anything you would do different. Anything he should have done different?

FO,

I'd love to hear from you on this. I actually put "pro" in my first draft of this thread, but didn't think there were too many of those out there and took it out.

If you feel comfortable, please let us know how ol' Mattie is doing.

OP - I just went to the McKinney North website for the first time - are you the web master ? That is a really nice website, very well done.

Yes, I am!! It's a lot of fun!

Thank you.

(I'm being EXTRA nice)

OP I noticed the thread was going to be "Pro" and you changed it, I would like to know how BB and others are doing.

quote:

Originally posted by Ben There:

quote:

Originally posted by KellerDad:
My son is at El Paso CC, played 62 games in the fall and have already played 10 this spring.

He's platooning in right field and hitting the ball well.

To tell you the truth, I think he's burnt out on baseball. We'll see how it goes once they start conference play and the games start meaning something.

Josh Choate from Lewisville is the starting catcher and hitting the ball hard, like real hard. Josh should play his way off of the team this year and on to a D1 squad.

Justin Tramp is platooning at DH and trying to get healthy from a shoulder surgery. He should be released to start throwing soon. My son says that he hasn't lost his timing on his swing and doing great at the plate.

John Coin was converted to a submariner in the fall and is trying to regain some velocity.

Why do you think he is burnt out? Looking back is there anything you would do different. Anything he should have done different?

My son has had a rough time of it the last year. We buried his favorite aunt, a father figure and now his brother in law and neice.

His heart isn't in baseball right now, and throw in 60+ meaningless fall baseball games and you get a young man burnt out.

Like I said, once the games start to mean something again, I think it might light his fire. If not, he's been accepted into UT for the fall.

It's interesting to observe the changes as players pass into the college world.

Sobering, ain't it?

Hard to really imagine beforehand, but astonishing once you do.

The talent level and work requirements step up.

Parents see it in their son's, and, I see it in parents posts here.

Juco is very, very good baseball...............

Ol' Mattie has been working very hard.

He hits with some other players about 9:00AM every morning, yoga after that, then works out with weights or runs from about 1:00PM to 3:00PM.

Sometimes he works out with MHS, and, I think, yesterday, he worked out with North.

He catches pens quite a bit.

Just got two new Wilson A2000 mitts in the mail to get ready for ST.

They keep three ready.

He pays for them, but gets a pretty good price.

He got a brand new set of catching gear when he left instructional in the fall.

Always big bags of catching gear at our house. Usually matched up to the team the current team somehow. Tigers, Wizards, MHS, Texas Tech.

Now it all says Oakland Athletics.

But, it does not seem strange at all.

He goes to Scottsdale on 3/3.

Then, if I get my work done, we are going out there for about a week from 3/13 to 3/19.

I noticed that they arrive on 3/3 and have games within just a few days.

First, major difference that I see, is that physical fitness is on your own. You've got to be in shape and ready to play when you get there.

The time off has been good for him. Not having to deal with school has been good for him.

Some of you are just now really gaining an understanding of what the college players go through.

He's wanted to be a ball player since he could pick a ball up and throw it.

It was truly ingrained in him by the time he was 10-12.

He played at Towne Lake, Mouzon, Cedardale, Arc Park, and I think every high school ball park in the entire metroplex, many more across the state, and in states across the country from California to Florida.

All for the chance that he gets in about two weeks.

I've said this to a few friends over the years as he moved to the high school level and then to college.

He is a very quiet kid, but I can sense a fire and determination in him like I did when he moved up to high school and college.

I didn't know if he would play in high school, I didn't know if he would play in college, and I don't know if he will ever play in MLB.

But, there won't be any doubt that he gave it his best shot..................

Sorry, I got a little nostalgic.

KD,
I hope you son gets it all sorted out. I have only talked with you and your son once but I have enjoyed seeing him play several times. More importantly I have heard from several people what a good kid he is. I am sure he will make the right decision for him.

OP -- I agree with BT that you've created a great website for the Bulldogs -- and I'm not just kissing your arse.

quote:

Picture of LIONS

Posted February 20, 2008 06:22 PM Hide Post
My son is going to Furman University a member of the Southern Conference.

LIONS,

How does your son like Coach Smith and Coach Shade? I'm interested in any other details you'd like to share.

And for those who haven't seen the Furman campus ... it is absolutely gorgeous!