Bakich In Game Interview Regarding Diverse Roster
It was great to see a college skipper address how travel ball has left a lot of talent behind.
And you wonder why Stanford wins the director’s cup each year: rich kids can play rich kid sports, and the parents pay the money to see to it.
If you're good enough, you don't need travel baseball. Travel baseball has essentially become a way for Dad's to live vicariously through their children, or a way for them to flaunt how much money they have. When I got to high school, there were plenty of kids that didn't even make the freshman team that were on these travel baseball teams. I personally only played rec ball and high school spring and summer ball, and I had the opportunity to play in college. I love what Bakich said.
underrated comment. thank you for the insight.
I don't agree with this, and it may be that your town has a better system than our town. Our baseball program offers both house and travel leagues. Travel costs more, but the coaches are actual coaches, unlike in house where you get dads to coach. That's where dads relive their glory days or try to have the glory days they didn't as a kid. One dad coach was so insane (I think it was 4th grade) that he literally yelled at a grandfather standing in the dugout doorway to take a picture of his grandson during a game, like this was the World Series and the boys needed complete focus. The high school team had its own summer league, and then a lot of the boys played on additional travel teams. All the boys that did, went on to play in college. Were there kids that didn't play community travel ball that made the high school team? Maybe 1 or 2. Were there any guys that didn't play high school travel that are now playing in college? No. From my son's high school senior class, six guys are playing in college via recruitment, and one guy walked on to Wisconsin's club team (weirdly enough, they don't have a D1 team). Without the additional coaching and exposure to better competition via travel, I don't think any of these guys would have played in college. And they're not playing in college because their dads bought their way in.
I am sorry that you had a bad experience in rec ball. I was fortunate to have my father as my coach who understood baseball, could teach baseball, and cared more about the kids and their enjoyment of the game than anything else. I will admit, that I wasn't recruited heavily, I actually actively sent out things to coaches in the area, mostly mid-west, and was able to go to practices to throw for a few. I played NAIA for what it's worth, but I just really wanted to play college baseball because I wanted to keep playing and wasn't ready to give it up.
If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?
We live in Evanston. I'm not saying our program is a bad one, it's just that it was clear early on that our kids were competitive and wanted to play to the best of their abilities. Some of the dad coaches were awesome; others not so much. One almost derailed my son's desire to be a pitcher by not letting him pitch all season even when my son begged him (this is 5th grade house league -- if a kid wants to pitch, and can throw strikes, you gotta let him pitch, but this guy favored his own son). Travel in our town meant you were working with the high school coaches; they ran the travel program. They were very fair. No one got left behind unless they were a danger to themselves or others on the field. There were three levels at my son's age. He started as a C in 6th grade and worked his way up to A by freshman year in high school. There were dads who were maybe too buddy-buddy with the coaches, perhaps to ensure their kids got places on the team. We stayed so far away from that scene that most of the other parents didn't know my name. I wanted my kid to know he did it all himself.
I do agree with Bakich about the ridiculous cost of travel ball and showcases once a kid decides he wants to play in college. Absolutely ridiculous. But unless you are a top D1 prospect, how do you get seen by lower level schools that don't have recruiting money? My son ended up playing at a midwest school but initially wanted to play on the east coast. He emailed coaches and went to a big showcase in New York, but got no interest. His high school coach pushed him towards Denison, and he was reticent, but it paid off great for him. Great coach, great guys, he likes the school academically. And ultimately the only money we paid was for that showcase in NY. His travel team wasn't college-oriented so it wasn't much more than playing for a local summer team.
While I think I agree with the sentiment, "Bakich believes calls the rising cost of playing baseball in America" doesn't tell me a whole lot. Is it overly expensive to learn to be a copy editor too?
Missed the interview b/c of my daughter's rec league softball game. Thank you for posting! Completely agree with Coach B's sentiments.
Great idea! Michigan needs to "run where they ain't" to recruit against the southern and western baseball schools, and that was a good message to the kids the south and west probably aren't recruiting. Best part is you can tell it was heartfelt.
He's right about the cost of showcases, exposure tournaments, and travel ball. My daughter's travel softball team is one of those crazy $$ teams that travels around the country, and I really am beginning to wonder if it's worth it when you can just target a couple of schools and go to their camps yourself. Her team stresses getting great test scores so that schools will give the players academic scholarships. Maybe some parents are betting on that -- spend the money on the travel team and it will pay off later in academic scholarships.
Maybe some parents are betting on that -- spend the money on the travel team and it will pay off later in academic scholarships.
Mostly tho, these kids will be lucky to get a 1/4 s'ship to Eastern Arkansas Tech. So good luck paying 3/4 out of state tuition.
My son got 30% of his tuition on an academic scholarship and his academics were commensurate with other non-athlete applicants who may not have gotten any academic money. We're just glad we started a 529 account when he was little -- it should cover the remaining costs. We're talking D3 here, not D1, where there are no real athletic scholarships. Same in softball. If my daughter were to get scholarship money, great. But if not, she still wants to play.
What I don't understand is for sports like baseball, soccer and hockey, which have huge numbers in metro areas such as Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, etc, why teams travel outside of their metro region. I have two boys who have played travel/club sports (lacrosse and hockey), and I think that the right approach is to travel as short of a distance as possible to find quality competition.
Youth hockey is a damn labyrinth. And this may not be unique to hockey, but there's the common myth that the more you sacrifice for something the more valuable it is. So if I drive farther, it must be because we're playing better teams.
Michigan difference