The NCAA Is College Baseball's Enemy

Excerpt from HSBBW-


At a high school baseball information seminar, sponsored by Encore Sports and Perfect Game ID Camps, held in Decatur, Alabama, those in attendance were treated to the insight of college baseball coaching legend Ron Polk, of Mississippi State University.

As Coach Polk started his discussion, which was to be on the role of high school coaches and parents in recruiting, he announced, "The NCAA is the enemy of college baseball!"

Coach Polk further went on to explain that at this point in his career he has made it his goal to berate the NCAA leadership and it's unfair treatment of college baseball programs, at every opportunity.

Coach Polk explained that several years ago it was decided that all NCAA DI men's sports scholarship totals would be reduced by 10%, across the board. This in the face of Title IX compliance. If you look at total allowable scholarships for men's sports you will see the unusual amounts, like 11.7 for baseball. This came as a result of reducing the previous number (13) by 10%.

Did you know that the NCAA Division I men's baseball College World Series is the second (2nd) largest championsip series sponsored by the NCAA? Coach Polk made this point .... the baseball regionals, super-regionals and CWS are surpassed in revenue generated for the NCAA only by the men's basketball tournament. What about football? Those bowl games are not revenue shared by the NCAA, only the participating schools and in some cases their conferences. And as Coach Polk asked ... "Does any of that baseball tournament money come back to college baseball programs in terms of increased scholarship amounts?" NO!

Coach Polk went on to discuss women's sports such as crew / rowing. The NCAA allows women's programs to give 20 full scholarships in crew. This, said Polk is an amazing amount when you consider that there is no such thing as a high school crew/rowing team! He went on to discuss how the University of Iowa filled their spots on the crew team the first season. Representatives from the crew team (coaches) and the athletic department milled around the freshman / new student enrollment tables. When an athletic looking female was spotted she was pulled over to a table and asked if she would like to be on the rowing team. Most responded by asking, "what is crew?" It was then explained that a full athletic scholarship was a part of the deal! It did not take long to find 20 new members of the Iowa crew team.

As a footnote Coach Polk added that when crew was added as a women's sport at Iowa and they did not even have a venue to hold home matches. They had to build a lake!

Coach Polk also mentioned that several of the NCAA Division I women's basketball programs do not use all of their allotted 15 full scholarships. (I know this was true at Tennessee until just recently). His point was that women's basketball has 15 scholarships while the men's programs are limited to 13 and baseball with 30 man rosters is limited to 11.7!

Coach Polk stated that in his next life he would like to come back as a women's golf coach, with 6 full scholarships.

Some other interesting factoids that Coach Polk shared with the audience:

College Athletics

Mississippi State sends out an average of 1,500 prospect questionnaires each year

The letters NCAA stands for "No Clue About Anything"

It is very important for a player and his family to have a prepared list of questions when talking with a college baseball coach

Get an unbiased evaluation of your player - without being "thin-skinned"

Realistic expectations / proper evaluation of talent (rose colored glasses - YES he used those words) Not many 8.0 - 60 yard dash guys playing centerfield at a DI program or guys that cannot hit a curveball

Provide opportunities to challenge their level of play - "Play Up"

Lose your ego

Parents and high school coaches need to make sure that the goals are that of the player, not theirs

Stay on top of their academics
The next factoids had to do with the Major League Baseball draft. Polk admitted to being a "college first" guy, but he also professed his love for all baseball, including the professional ranks. He did however want to share some eye-opening numbers with us.


Since the MLB Free-Agent Player Draft has been in it's current form (starting in 1966) only 5% of all players have ever played at least one game in the big leagues

Of the 5% that made it to the big leagues only 6% of those 5% managed to stay 4 years. (or the equal of a college career)

Of all the first round draft selections since 1966 only 48% have ever played in the bigs. Or in other words 52% of all first round draft picks did not make it to the majors!

Current MLB rosters consist of 30% foreign born players. Thus making it tougher and tougher for a U.S. born player to get to the big leagues.

HSBBW

 

I happen to agree with him.

NCAA = NOT a CLUE ABOUT ANYTHING

The NCAA has lost touch with reality. Time and time again they have proven that they are pursuing their own agenda and do not care about the student athlete. It is past time for a major shake-up.

 

This appears to be a good thread to go over the numbers of what's happening in college baseball.

BASICALLY: Here's the skinny.

NCAA Division 1
Each College/University may have 11.7 full scholarships. The scholarship monies can be divided up among the 30-35 players that the college/Uni recruits so full scholarships are very rare. Some of the lower level D1 schools don't fund all 11.7 scholarships. A few years ago, Duke only funded 5, so, if you are being recruited, ASK. You may combine athletic and academic scholarship money. This is one of the reasons that the academically gifted ball player is so well liked by the colleges/univ. They can save athletic money and use it on someone else.

Example: Carolina, Elon, Davidson, UNC-W

NCAA Division 2
Exactly the same, but limited to 9 scholarships, treated the same way.

Example: Pfieffer

NCAA Division 3
No athletic scholarships are given in D3.

Example: Methodist

NCAA Division 1 Ivy League
The Ivy League and the Patriot league do not give athletic scholarships, even though they are D1.

Examples: Harvard, Yale

NAIA
May fund 12 scholarships. Unless they are a baseball powerhouse traditionally, don't expect them to fund all 12. Except for the number of scholarships, they are pretty much like the NCAA D1/D2.

Examples: Brevard, Montreat

NJCAA D1/D2/D3
D1 offers up to 24 full scholarships. These MAY include tuition, room, board, books, fees. You can blend athletic money with scholastic money.

D2 is the same, up to 24 full scholarships bu they CANNOT include room/board or fees. Again, you can use scholarship blending.

D3 has no athletic scholarships.

Typical baseball playing JUCO's:
Spartanburg Methodist, Louisberg, Surry, Lenior CC

 

Last year, there was an opportunity to make adjustments to the effects of Title IX, which has led to the current quota system. A review committee was put together with the responsibility of responding to congress about how Title IX was working.

It was HOPED by members of the wrestling (which has been murdered by Title IX and has almost ceased to exist on a collegiate level) and baseball that the recommendation would pass eliminating Football from the counting towards Title IX athletics.

Instead, the committee decided that crew at the University of Syracuse was more important that Wrestling at Iowa or Baseball at Auburn. Don't expect any changes.

As of right now, the only thing that may impact the power of the NCAA is the consistent threat of California to pull out of the NCAA and form their own body. This would be such a serious blow to their credibility, that changes would possibly occur. The Title IX legislation is specific as to the NCAA and athletics.

Summary: Don't expect any changes in the forseeable future.

 

This has been a sore subject for me for several years.

I'd love to be able to compute the ratio of Division I baseball scholarships paid-to-college baseball TV revenues. I'd bet a fair amount of money that that ratio has declined appreciably over the last 10 years. In other words...and to reinforce the earlier point...college baseball programs
(and, in particular, college baseball players) are not benefitting from their growing popularity and attendant TV exposure.

When 200 players travel to Omaha to play in the College World Series and only ONE PLAYER is on a full, athletic scholarship; something's wrong with that picture! That was the statistic associated with the 2002 CWS.

Ironically, the only positive element that I can associate with the relatively low number of scholarships allocated to baseball is that it helps keep the recruiting process "clean." In football and basketball, where full scholarships are the order of the day, coaches are more tempted to find other dimensions to exploit. Whereas, in baseball, the percentage of scholarship awarded becomes the primary "battleground."

 

The composition of the Title IX review committee pretty much doomed any chance of an objective and non-political review IMO.

It is truly a shame.

 

Title IX

You all obviously don't have girls for children. They deserve as much a chance as the men.

 

Title IX is fine as a concept, but the implementation of it is flawed. It's purely political and has no basis in reality.

 

I do have girls (no sons) so I will weigh in on this. As long as the colleges are offering scholarships for womens athletics in the traditional high school sports then that should be good enough. But to make the colleges come up with sports such as crew to fill a quota, and it is a quota, and eliminate scholarship monies for men's teams to make the numbers equal is just plain ridiculous. Take a poll of the student body every 4 years and see how many men and women really want to participate in athletics. Award the scholarships on that percentage basis.

I guess we could just go back to the old days of all girls schools and all boys schools and eliminate the problem. Let each school stand on their own and be made to come up with the money they need for facilities, coaching staffs, scholarships, and equipment. Then no one gender group can be accused of taking advantage of the other. I can see it now. CUB and CUG across the road from each other. (Clemson University for Boys, Clemson University for Girls).