I have read positive things on this sight about Trinity, but then realized there is more then one. Who knows about the D3 program and college of Trinity in San Antonio, Texas?
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My son had a pretty good experience playing ball. Much has been written about the school and the program. I suggest that you use the "find" buttom above and type in Trinity; you should get a wealth of info, most of which is still current.
Send me a PM if you need specific info.
Send me a PM if you need specific info.
calisportsfan,
There are a variety of current and past posters on the site with knowledge of Trinity and the baseball program.
BOF's son is a freshman at Trinity, Tx, majoring in Engineering,and getting ready to start baseball this weekend. I expect he would provide very solid, current information on the University, the current academics and living situations, food, etc. It sounds like BOF, Jr, from Southern CA. is doing very well in the classroom, on the field, with some social life built around both.
Trinity is a wonderful school, from an academic perspective.
Our son was one of the first from Northern CA. to attend Trinity, being recruited from the Stanford Camp.
Once players and families get on campus, the beauty of the school and its location in San Antonio can be pretty stunning and impressive.
Academically, one very large positive is there are no TA's. All classes are taught by professors, the class sizes are about 12 students, and all professors are available outside the classroom to guide and support so things like study hall are not required and usually not needed.
Our son played there and then returned to coach after his career in Milb ended, before being able to return to CA. and continue his college coaching career locally. He remains in regular contact with his friends and the coaches.
Coach Scannell and Coach Fregosi have turned Trinity into a top program in the SCAC, and Western Region. They are a national power which has been 1 game from the DIII CWS on 3 occasions.
The coaching staff is direct and straightforward and they can coach!
As jemaz posted last week on a thread, Pete Hughes, now at Virgina Tech, helped turn the program around beginning in 1997. Coach Hughes remains very proud of the result achieved by his life long friend, Coach Scannell.
As with any school, program, and coaching staff, a recruit and his parents could receive different impressions.
One aspect of the Coaching staff which tends to exemplify them as coaches and people is represented, perhaps, by two very, very talented players who started at Trinity but ended up transferring for reasons unrelated to baseball or the school One was a surf guy and one was in a relationship. Both became starters in a Big West program so you know Trinity recruits talented players.
Even after they transferred and while in Milb, both consider Coach Scannell a great friend and adviser and call him routinely.
Good Luck.
If your son has an interest, I suggest making a visit. There isn't anything in CA which is similar. Schools like Santa Clara and St. Mary's have similarities but are still quite different.
There are a variety of current and past posters on the site with knowledge of Trinity and the baseball program.
BOF's son is a freshman at Trinity, Tx, majoring in Engineering,and getting ready to start baseball this weekend. I expect he would provide very solid, current information on the University, the current academics and living situations, food, etc. It sounds like BOF, Jr, from Southern CA. is doing very well in the classroom, on the field, with some social life built around both.
Trinity is a wonderful school, from an academic perspective.
Our son was one of the first from Northern CA. to attend Trinity, being recruited from the Stanford Camp.
Once players and families get on campus, the beauty of the school and its location in San Antonio can be pretty stunning and impressive.
Academically, one very large positive is there are no TA's. All classes are taught by professors, the class sizes are about 12 students, and all professors are available outside the classroom to guide and support so things like study hall are not required and usually not needed.
Our son played there and then returned to coach after his career in Milb ended, before being able to return to CA. and continue his college coaching career locally. He remains in regular contact with his friends and the coaches.
Coach Scannell and Coach Fregosi have turned Trinity into a top program in the SCAC, and Western Region. They are a national power which has been 1 game from the DIII CWS on 3 occasions.
The coaching staff is direct and straightforward and they can coach!
As jemaz posted last week on a thread, Pete Hughes, now at Virgina Tech, helped turn the program around beginning in 1997. Coach Hughes remains very proud of the result achieved by his life long friend, Coach Scannell.
As with any school, program, and coaching staff, a recruit and his parents could receive different impressions.
One aspect of the Coaching staff which tends to exemplify them as coaches and people is represented, perhaps, by two very, very talented players who started at Trinity but ended up transferring for reasons unrelated to baseball or the school One was a surf guy and one was in a relationship. Both became starters in a Big West program so you know Trinity recruits talented players.
Even after they transferred and while in Milb, both consider Coach Scannell a great friend and adviser and call him routinely.
Good Luck.
If your son has an interest, I suggest making a visit. There isn't anything in CA which is similar. Schools like Santa Clara and St. Mary's have similarities but are still quite different.
Thanks for the information so far. Keep it coming!
I travel often to San Antonio and it is a historic thriving bi-cultural city. Visiting the beautiful Riverwalk is a must do activity to get the flavor of the city. Not far from San Antonio is the Texas Hill Country as well as the music and clubbing scene of Austin Texas, the city I would live in if I could live anywhere in Texas. The above posters have more experience with Trinity University itself, although to all Texans it is known as a nationally renowned academic school. What I would stress is that it is located in a unique city that I had a lot of fun in as a young man. Don't forget to bring some cowboy boots although if that's not your scene that's okay too. 
Son traveled all over playing ball in college, from Miami to Honolulu, including San Antonio. He said SA was the best place they played, by far.
My son attended Trinity from 2008-2010 and then left to join the military.
Very academically strong school. I remember my son saying the average ACT score there was about a 30.
Very expensive ($40,000 / yr).
My son joined the football team his freshman year. If I remember correctly they offered no football scholarships but I don't know if this applied to baseball.
Lots of stuff to do in the San Antonio area which could be a positive or negative.
Very academically strong school. I remember my son saying the average ACT score there was about a 30.
Very expensive ($40,000 / yr).
My son joined the football team his freshman year. If I remember correctly they offered no football scholarships but I don't know if this applied to baseball.
Lots of stuff to do in the San Antonio area which could be a positive or negative.
As infielddad said my son is a freshman there and has adapted to the school and baseball program very well. He loves it.
You can look up the school in most of the publications to get a pretty accurate academic overview, so I won’t spend too much time on this. It is consistently ranked as the top small liberal arts and sciences school in the West.
The things that set it apart for me are, that although the school and classes are demanding, there is no reason for a student to not do well there. The class sizes are small; all taught by professors who have open office hours, there are study groups and tutors and the student population, while competitive, are helpful to each other and inclusive in their approach. You just don’t find this environment very often at the high academic schools on either coast IMO. It is a small school with around 2,700 students and they require that you live on campus for 3 years, so it has a very different vibe than many places. My son came back for Thanksgiving and got together and were sharing stories with a large group of his friends who have gone off to college and he thinks he made the best pick out of the 20 or so of his friends who have gone off to many of the top Universities in the country. (these are not baseball players just students)
From a baseball standpoint, as IFD pointed out the program is consistently ranked and they run it like a D1 as near as I can tell. Facilities are better than many D1’s, but not like you would find at one of the top 25 D1 programs. The team is very deep and can play! You will have to earn your way onto this team, just like any other school, but I think you will find the top nationally ranked D3 programs more like mid-level D1’s as far as breaking into the starting line up. For example, my son says that he thinks there will be 6 pitchers throwing in the 90’s this year. The number one will be drafted this year and he is 93-96. He keeps telling me that “this team can rake” FWIW.
Now with all of the great stuff it is not the place for everyone. The combination of a demanding school and baseball program is not for everyone. If you are not a self starter and committed to both excellence on and off the field, it is certainly not the place for you. The kids on the team work hard, but also have fun when they get a chance. My son now sports a nice pair of cowboy boots, a big ol shiny belt buckle, a button down pearl cowboy shirt and they go out and two step and have a great time when they can.
PM me for specific questions.
You can look up the school in most of the publications to get a pretty accurate academic overview, so I won’t spend too much time on this. It is consistently ranked as the top small liberal arts and sciences school in the West.
The things that set it apart for me are, that although the school and classes are demanding, there is no reason for a student to not do well there. The class sizes are small; all taught by professors who have open office hours, there are study groups and tutors and the student population, while competitive, are helpful to each other and inclusive in their approach. You just don’t find this environment very often at the high academic schools on either coast IMO. It is a small school with around 2,700 students and they require that you live on campus for 3 years, so it has a very different vibe than many places. My son came back for Thanksgiving and got together and were sharing stories with a large group of his friends who have gone off to college and he thinks he made the best pick out of the 20 or so of his friends who have gone off to many of the top Universities in the country. (these are not baseball players just students)
From a baseball standpoint, as IFD pointed out the program is consistently ranked and they run it like a D1 as near as I can tell. Facilities are better than many D1’s, but not like you would find at one of the top 25 D1 programs. The team is very deep and can play! You will have to earn your way onto this team, just like any other school, but I think you will find the top nationally ranked D3 programs more like mid-level D1’s as far as breaking into the starting line up. For example, my son says that he thinks there will be 6 pitchers throwing in the 90’s this year. The number one will be drafted this year and he is 93-96. He keeps telling me that “this team can rake” FWIW.
Now with all of the great stuff it is not the place for everyone. The combination of a demanding school and baseball program is not for everyone. If you are not a self starter and committed to both excellence on and off the field, it is certainly not the place for you. The kids on the team work hard, but also have fun when they get a chance. My son now sports a nice pair of cowboy boots, a big ol shiny belt buckle, a button down pearl cowboy shirt and they go out and two step and have a great time when they can.
PM me for specific questions.
LOL My daughter went to college in the south. She came home with her iPod loaded with country music.quote:My son now sports a nice pair of cowboy boots, a big ol shiny belt buckle, a button down pearl cowboy shirt and they go out and two step and have a great time when they can.
If your kids ever have issues in life just have them play country music backwards.
You get your dog back, your truck back and your wife back.
You get your dog back, your truck back and your wife back.
You have a PM.
RJM, he's also got Country music on the iPod now. He also has also found a new appreciation for the Blues. He plays the guitar and now wants a banjo! 
(I have no idea on how he is going to find the time to learn this contraption )
Cali, the roster went up today, it is a bit of a work in progress but I have been told they will be bringing in a large class this year in preparation for the Jr class leaving in two years. This means some opportunities for some freshmen next year, and if not, certainly in their Soph year there will be lots of opportunities. They expect to have a championship caliber team this and next year.
Cali, the roster went up today, it is a bit of a work in progress but I have been told they will be bringing in a large class this year in preparation for the Jr class leaving in two years. This means some opportunities for some freshmen next year, and if not, certainly in their Soph year there will be lots of opportunities. They expect to have a championship caliber team this and next year.
Speaking from a player's standpoint, Trinity does an amazing job of capitalizing on Texas talent. There truly isn't anything like it (in my opinion; I played at the 5a level which is argueably the most competitive high school division in the nation) in preparing kids for the mental aspect of the game. I (oddly) didn't really get recruited by any schools in state, so I don't have any personal knowledge of the staff, but I do know that I really do respect their program and think as long as they milk the texas talent, their potential success is limitless.
The only complaint I have as a player (which may be off-base, feel free to correct me BOF & IFD) is their roster size, which is not even that bad. I have come to really appreciate a smaller roster of a max of 32-35 player, with preferred under 30, for the unity and cohesion it can really form as a team. Just be careful with any school, not just Trinity, and make sure you're truly comfortable with the roster size of a school. I have always believed that you shouldn't be given innings, you have to earn them, but on the flip side, you shouldn't have to just be a jersey number on a big roster.
Highheat
The only complaint I have as a player (which may be off-base, feel free to correct me BOF & IFD) is their roster size, which is not even that bad. I have come to really appreciate a smaller roster of a max of 32-35 player, with preferred under 30, for the unity and cohesion it can really form as a team. Just be careful with any school, not just Trinity, and make sure you're truly comfortable with the roster size of a school. I have always believed that you shouldn't be given innings, you have to earn them, but on the flip side, you shouldn't have to just be a jersey number on a big roster.
Highheat
And the country music is just a Texas thing. I was never a person you would consider country, but now that I'm up North, I'm rocking cowboy boots, Texas belt buckles, a Texas flag in the dorm, and a little bit more Texas twang when I speak. It's a Texas thing, you'll never understand it unless you live it.
You are absolutely correct on the roster size highheat, at least as far as making the travel team. They do carry 40+, and 25 get most of the playing time. This does allow under developed or slow developing players time, and everyone participates in practice and they scrimmage a lot so even if you are not on the travel squad you will get in a lot of reps. The flip side of this is that Scannell will not cut you if you are putting in the work so you can have the opportunity to be on a college team and all of the things that this brings. I don’t know this for a fact, but I think they broke out of the pack when they started recruiting nationally, about 1/3 of the squad is from Tx, about a 1/3 from Cal, and the balance from everywhere else.
quote:Originally posted by highheat15:
The only complaint I have as a player (which may be off-base, feel free to correct me BOF & IFD) is their roster size, which is not even that bad. I have come to really appreciate a smaller roster of a max of 32-35 player, with preferred under 30, for the unity and cohesion it can really form as a team. Just be careful with any school, not just Trinity, and make sure you're truly comfortable with the roster size of a school. I have always believed that you shouldn't be given innings, you have to earn them, but on the flip side, you shouldn't have to just be a jersey number on a big roster.
Highheat
hh15, this is a very good question for any HS recruit looking at and evaluating options.
I could provide the history on why Trinity can have larger roster sizes, since it wasn't always that way. I don't think the detailed history matters much, though.
The short answer is the roster size results from the academics, National reputation, the long term success of the baseball program, and a Head Coach who finds it terribly difficult to cut players who love the game, put their heart into it, want to be part of the team and will sacrifice to do so.
While a larger roster can present some issues, my perspective is it becomes a wonderful asset when strong leadership is present within the team. Quality leadership, good players and intense competition for playing time can result in remarkable team chemistry and bonds and the fun and reward of regular participation and success in post season play.
Whatever they're doing is working, that's for sure. I have the utmost respect for the Trinity Baseball program and unfortunately won't get the chance to play y'all unless it's in the World Series. Here's to hopefully seeing you guys someday in Appleton and best of luck to your son this year.
quote:Originally posted by highheat15:
And the country music is just a Texas thing. I was never a person you would consider country, but now that I'm up North, I'm rocking cowboy boots, Texas belt buckles, a Texas flag in the dorm, and a little bit more Texas twang when I speak. It's a Texas thing, you'll never understand it unless you live it.
HH, my son moved to Connecticut when he was in 8th grade and became much more Texan! He found the young ladies like the accent...
I am going to make one more comment about the program and the coaching staff and let it go. There are five coaches in this program, only two of them are paid staff. This is as many as some D1 programs. They are doing some cutting edge stuff from the Wolforth inspired throwing programs, Nick Vera, the strength and conditioning coach completely changed my son’s body in one semester. (well he did actually go the gym…) but my point is that if a player wants to get better the resources are there for him. These guys don’t have to be there, but they are because they love baseball, the kids and Coach Scannell.
Twotex, my son is finding out that the Texas girls like the Cali "accent", but this is a whole nother story....
Twotex, my son is finding out that the Texas girls like the Cali "accent", but this is a whole nother story....
quote:Originally posted by BOF:
Twotex, my son is finding out that the Texas girls like the Cali "accent", but this is a whole nother story....
True that!
My son's team played them last year and split with them. He reports their pitching was the best they faced all year. They had two pitchers throwing in the 90's. They and Millsaps were the only teams he felt were truly competitive with them. Good ball team, great school. They do send guys to the minors.
Unfortunately the SCAC is breaking up this year. It was too expensive for the Eastern Schools to fly their teams out to the western schools in the conference--especially for football teams. Presidents were also concerned about the lost school time for athletes (at least that was part of the official excuse). That will hurt Trinity because Birmingham-Southern, and Millsaps will no longer be in the conference.
Unfortunately the SCAC is breaking up this year. It was too expensive for the Eastern Schools to fly their teams out to the western schools in the conference--especially for football teams. Presidents were also concerned about the lost school time for athletes (at least that was part of the official excuse). That will hurt Trinity because Birmingham-Southern, and Millsaps will no longer be in the conference.
The SCAC break up is unfortunate and I know the players and coaches at TU are going to miss playing Millsaps and will also miss the opportunities to play BSC more often. I would imagine that in the future TU will try to arrange for OOC games against these two strong programs. TU and the SCAC are actually in a stable place now. U of Dallas, Centenary have joined and have very strong programs. Shreiner joined this week, so the conference will maintain it’s automatic bid and frankly it is going to have some very strong programs to contend with. TU will also continue to arrange OOC games against ranked teams and has already set up a home and away series against (this years number two ranked) Chapman. I suspect that the SCAC will also continue to add other like schools as they need to bring in 2-3 more so the football side of the conference will be able to maintain their automatic bid, and frankly this will drive the addition of schools, which will also help the baseball side of the conference. There are a number of possibilities and there are a number of schools in the area with strong baseball programs. So overall things will be fine for TU and the SCAC baseball conference, and in fact organizing games and travel will actually be easier.
Frankly this impacts Birmingham-Southern more negatively than any program and I feel sorry for their players and coaches. They have been locked out of post-season play for the past three seasons as they dropped down to DIII, and now when they finally get the ability to participate they will have to go through another period of uncertainty. I really don’t want to take this thread off on another tangent so I will stop here. If someone wants to discuss this whole conference realignment then open up a new thread on the subject. Suffice to say that Trinity will be fine in their realigned conference.
Frankly this impacts Birmingham-Southern more negatively than any program and I feel sorry for their players and coaches. They have been locked out of post-season play for the past three seasons as they dropped down to DIII, and now when they finally get the ability to participate they will have to go through another period of uncertainty. I really don’t want to take this thread off on another tangent so I will stop here. If someone wants to discuss this whole conference realignment then open up a new thread on the subject. Suffice to say that Trinity will be fine in their realigned conference.
Bump
My daughter attends Trinity and plays volleyball. We have been nothing but thrilled with her experience there academically and athletically. It is a great school, pretty demanding, but with professors who care and are willing to help as much as the student is willing to ask. She will graduate there with a great degree(accounting) with what we think will be great job opportunities. She has had excellent coaching and very good support from the athletic department. She has also met lots of great people.
We now have a senior baseball player who is uncommitted. He was not interested in Trinity at all until he visited campus on a trip to see his sister play volleyball. The baseball team just happened to be playing that weekend on campus. Something about the quality of play, the camaraderie of the team, and the beautiful campus(and pretty girls) have him reconsidering! It didn't hurt that it was 80 degrees in November…..
We also cannot say enough about the D3 experience. Our daughter has had the opportunity to be in a sorority, a business fraternity, travel abroad(in summer), peer tutor, volunteer, all along with being a conference champion and making it to the Sweet 16 in D3 last season. I know she would't have had been able to partake in all of many of these opportunities at the D1 or D2 level. She has the best of both worlds-academic excellence and a terrific volleyball experience.
