Wofford fall practice leads up to Suckfest '13

[SoaringEagle]

Another year, another last-place losing WOOFord baseball team on tap. I still can't figure out why these boys keep practicing...they are in dress rehearsal for another FLOP when the curtain opens this spring. Gosh-darn, what a pathetic program.

[BigJohn94]

Funny, we say the same thing about your football team, and GSU in general

[SoaringEagle]

Hey, LittleJohn, jealousy is just not a good thing! Our football team has six rings...yours has ZIP!

By the way, you seen Robin Hood lately?

[Natural]

Funny how SoaringIdiot forgets his beloved GSU is 2-4 vs. Terrier baseball over past two seasons, including series wins for Wofford at GSU and at home.

[TheTerrier]

I will be the first to say it, Wofford does not get the most talented players...half of the team consists merely walk-ons due to scholarship limitations. What I can say is that Coach I does much with the little he is given. Either that or the players work their asses off. Just think what would happen if the program had both of those components though..

[Ruckus]

All it takes is money.

[Natural]

"...half the team consists of walk-ons..." is INACCURATE!

There are maybe 3-4 true walk-ons in any given year. What people don't understand is what a good job these coaches do with very little scholarship money. First, they do not give more than 25% in baseball money (minimum allowed) to any player. And second, they do a fantastic job of identifying student athletes with the grades and test scores who qualify for maximum academic scholarship money. Granted, this does limit who and how many they can recruit - but it is the best way to build a ball club with limited baseball dollars available to them. And if you notice a growing number of out-of-state recruits it is due to several factors. First - it broadens the number of qualified players they can recruit and two, the school admissions folks LOVE students from other states because all schools like to show geographic diversity.

All of this illustrates how hard these guys work to identify, recruit and win over players all across the country and why they should be rewarded for their efforts by the administration with more support. ($)

[COHAZE]

I know people who have been trying to get an accurate figure on the number of scholarships Wofford baseball has to work with for several years. Last I heard it was 4, or maybe a fraction over 4. For the sake of argument let's say 4.5. Under NCAA rules if they give any scholarship money it must be at least 25%. According to Natural they never give more than 25%. Personally, I doubt that this is is exactly true. My guess is that some players are getting more than 25% in athletic money. But, let's assume Natural is correct. Dividing .25 into 4.5 gives you 18 25% scholarships. The maximum NCAA roster size is 35. AT MOST only 18 of Wofford's 35 players can be on scholarship. I suspect the true number is less than 18. The rest must therefore be walkons. You can quibble about whether they are preferred walkons or competitive walkons, but the bottom line is they aren't getting any money to play baseball.

Wofford will NEVER be competitive on a consistent basis without more athletic scholarships to work with. Furman has seen the light and fully funded their program. Look for Wofford to fall even further behind unless something changes.

[Ruckus]

As an aside but somewhat related point, Harold Chandler specifically mentioned the baseball funding issue in his remarks last month to the T-Club on behalf of the BoTs. Sadly, he couched them in terms of his hearing concerns and rumblings from the stands similar to those he heard in the early to mid 90's re football funding, so he expects more people will step up to make it happen. I took his comments to mean that it is on US, those who for one reason or another have some vested interest in seeing our basbeball program succeed, to supply the necessary impetus and dollars. While that may be true in part, it does not send the message I desire to hear from the college's BoTs or college admin./T-Club: THEY are prioritizing more dollars for our baseball program due to it being vastly underfunded and putting emhasis from a institutions perspective in improving the program's financial and operational status.

[Eyes of Old Main]

It seemed that until football became fully funded that Wofford added 2-3 scholarships in that sport each year. Was that from football-specific sources, or from the general athletic budget? Also, now that football is funded, where has the focus shifted? I would have to think we are fully funded in men's basketball already as well. Has the focus shifted to women's scholarships?

I guess the true question is where do we stand overall? Is baseball's position similar or equal to most other sports, or is it lagging behind for whatever reason? To some extent I suppose it changes from year-to-year since some of the athletic scholarships are applied to different teams based on need.

Resources are always limited and I don't want to see Wofford make poor financial decisions to be competitive in sports, but at some point it seems that we should be getting out from behind the 8 ball on this. Can anyone enlighten us on the overall position of our athletic scholarship situation?

[Natural]

So that COHAZE and everyone understands what I am saying a few definitions are in order:

A "walk-on" in baseball recruiting is someone who asks the coach if he can try out for the team in the fall and has no guarantee of a roster spot. Most do not make it and those that do rarely if ever see the field.

A "preferred walk-on" is a player who is given no scholarship money BUT is promised a guaranteed roster spot. He may play, he may not. Usually a limited amount.

In the recruiting world, there are many different sources of scholarship money. A player the coaches recruit and want on the team may qualify for enough academic money due to good grades, strong transcripts, strong test scores, geographic diversity or ethnic diversity that they can convince him Wofford is the place for him WITHOUT giving them baseball scholarship money.

And finally, the most highly prized recruits with baseball money offers from other schools are the ones who end up with the 25% offer - and trust me, that is a real number. If they happen to be good students as well, they may qualify for academic money in addition to but not in place of baseball money.

I agree 100% that to compete in the SOCON the program needs more baseball scholarships. Where the lack of baseball money really hurts is depth. The team has no depth and therefore one or two injuries or players who don't pan out and the outcome suffers.

[COHAZE]

As I said in my initial post, you can quibble about preferred walkons vs. competitive walkons. But the fact remains that AT LEAST 17 out of 35 players are non-scholarship. Based on what I have heard, I suspect the number is higher than 17.

Frankly, I think distinguishing between preferred and non-preferred walkons at a school like Wofford is a waste of time. The talent level of the preferreds at Wofford is GENERALLY going to be lower than the preferreds at places like C of C, Coastal, CU and USC. One reason for this is no one grows up wanting to play baseball at Wofford. They want to play at the bigger "name" programs. The cost of tuition and academics also narrow the pool of potential preferred walkons.

It's really pretty simple. To get better players Wofford needs more athletic scholarships. Even then it's still going to be an uphill battle because of the cost of tuition and academics. Wofford will always have to target the smarter kids, the legacy kids, and the diamonds in the rough. But more scholarships would certainly help.

How much of a disadvantage is it to only have 4.5 total scholarships? As I indicated earlier, Wofford can give AT MOST 18 25% minimum scholarships. That is NINE (9) less than a fully funded program. That's an entire infield, an entire outfield, and one pitcher. Or 5 starters and 4 relievers. How much better would the team be with 9 more scholarship players?

You could actually fund 9 more 25% scholarships with only 2.25 more total scholarships. But, imagine what you could do with 7 more full scholarships. You could still only add 9 kids, but you could give 4 of those kids full rides, and divide the remaining 3 scholarships among the other 5. You should be able to get some really good pitchers (or hitters) with those full rides.

[Natural]

Just so you know - NO ONE gets a "full ride" in college baseball when there are only 11.75 scholarships allowed. Even at the big programs.

[COHAZE]

I am very familiar with the recruiting process. We went through it five years ago. And four or five years ago I would have agreed with you. But, not any more. Historically, full rides have been very, very rare. I think the last one at Clemson was Kris Benson. And they are still very uncommon at most schools. However, I've been hearing that some coaches are taking the approach that it is better to offer a few full rides (or near full rides) and pick up a few top flight players, usually pitchers, that they can build a program around. Bakich was taking this approach at Maryland. Not sure what he's doing now that he has moved on to Michigan. I've also heard that some of the high academic schools have also been doing some of it. Do I expect a major trend here? Absolutely not. I don't think you'll ever see schools like SC, UNC, UGA, and CLemson do it. But you may see some of it at places like Wake and Duke. Let's face it, those schools are never going to be able to recruit the number of talented prospects that the bigger schools do. They have nothing to lose by trying something different. I think it would be worth the gamble at Wofford, if they were fully funded.

[dialing8]

I agree with CoHaze. He knows the numbers and the recruiting process as well as anyone on any chat board. So it is time to get the money into the program. The Atlanta Golf Tournament is starting to raise money for the program and yes---for the first time ever I saw it in writing that we have less than 5 scholarships in baseball.
BIG BIG step to let that cat out of the bag, even though I have discussed it for YEARS!!!