Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the abca's podcast. I'm your host, ryan brownlee.
If you run a baseball facility, Swift is the only piece of software you need to manage and grow your business.
From scheduling and payments to memberships and retail, Swift takes care of it all. Your coaches can use the app to manage their schedule on the go, and your customers have a sleek and fast way to book online lessons, rentals, camps, packages and more all in one spot. That's why hundreds of the best baseball facilities across the country rely on Swift. And now, with their upcoming AI Front desk, you can literally put your business on autopilot. Get started in minutes@run SwiftApp download.
That's runswiftapp.com ABCA spend less time behind the Screen and more time on the field this episode is sponsored by Netting Pros.
Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time.
Netting Professionals specializes in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for backstops, batting cages, dugouts, BP screens and ball carts. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen turf, turf protectors, dugout benches, dugout cubbies, and more.
Netting Professionals is an official partner of the ABCA and continues to provide quality products and services to many high school, college and professional fields, facilities and stadiums throughout the country.
Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time.
Contact them today at 627 oh7 or infoettingpros.com.
visit them online at www.nettingpros.com or check out NettingPros on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects.
Make sure to let CEO Will Minor know that the ABCA sent you. Now on to the podcast.
We continue our previews this week on the ABCA Podcast with NCAA Division 3. We're joined this week with Jim Dixon and Lance Marshall. Dixon is the managing editor of D3Baseball.com and has been the go to source for NCAA Division 3 baseball for over 30 years.
Marshall has been the head baseball coach at Franklin College since 1997.
Their Director of Athletics since 2023 currently serves as the ABCA NCAA Division 3 Committee Chair. Let's welcome Jim Dixon and Lance Marshall. The podcast here with Jim Dixon, managing editor of D3baseball.com it's3baseball is the Twitter the X handle and then Lance Marshall, our ABCA Division 3 committee chair. So this is new. We've never had coaches on the preview before so Lance is the first. Can be awesome.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Excited to be here.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Hey, how many more?
[00:03:14] Speaker C: Thank you for having us.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, how many more years do we have the Contract with Lake County.
[00:03:20] Speaker C: One.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: One more. Do we know where it's going after that?
[00:03:24] Speaker C: Going to York, Pennsylvania.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
Very cool. They got a pro park in York.
[00:03:31] Speaker C: They do. I'm trying to think what the name.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Of the park is, but who are they affiliated with?
[00:03:42] Speaker C: York is, I think with the Mac, either the Freedom or the Commonwealth.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
Lance, what are your thoughts coming out of the convention?
[00:03:53] Speaker B: I think it was, it was great to reconnect with so many friends, so many, you know, make some new friends, meet some new people.
That's always the best part of the convention for me is kind of, kind of reconnecting with the old ones and making new friends. And I felt like the, the ABCA was probably its all time best. There have been some great conventions, but it just keeps getting better every year. The clinics are great.
The addition a few years back of the Expo Theater really broadened the horizons of the topics and everything. So there's so much information out there and it's fantastic. And honestly, the older I get, the more I really enjoy just the conversations in the hallways about certain topics with, with other coaches and seeing how they do things. And no, I really enjoyed the state. I thought Columbus was a great location for it. Lots of restaurants and places within walking distance and convention center was convenient. So that was an awesome, awesome weekend. You know, my assistant coaches really enjoyed it and I heard a lot of positives from a lot of people.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: I liked the Expo Theater this year. It's the first time we've actually had it in a recessed area. I felt like it was better in that respect where it was kind of right outside of the exhibit area so you could get to it. You know, hopefully we can try to keep that with our post convention meeting. We talked about that. If we can try to get the Expo Theater right across from where the exhibits are in a recessed area. I thought it was better for, for people being able to hear, but also for traffic. Traffic for them in the Expo Theater area.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I would agree. 100 with the craft, you can walk out of one and into another without taking much of a break. And like I said, I thought it was really well done. Great, great.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Jim, what do you think come out of the World Series last year? I mean, I felt like Whitewater was really close to maybe going back to back.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Well, I'm not.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: They obviously had the best team. They batted over 400, so nobody was going to slow them down.
I think really the story is not that Whitewater won, it's just what Messiah did.
And certainly their Coach coaching style turned a lot of heads and so I think that we're going to see some like we always see in Division 3 of Focus on the student athlete. I think even more focus on the student athlete turned out to be in big gains for Messiah. So I think that is the top story.
But Whitewater certainly just flew through a tournament and it's just amazing how many runs they scored.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Have you gotten a chance to work through the preseason rankings yet?
[00:06:30] Speaker C: We have. We're actually doing. The preseason poll comes out on Wednesday, so we're in the midst of voting. So I actually have a preliminary view of the poll showed up so I can refer back to it.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: How many of those teams that made it last year do you feel like are going to get back, if any?
[00:06:52] Speaker C: It's hard to say. I don't know about Whitewater.
Endicott has a real shot.
Kane has a real shot at it.
I don't know.
I think beyond that, maybe Trinity.
But there's a lot of good schools out there, a lot of good programs that didn't make it.
Salva certainly does have a shot. Lynchburg has a very strong pitching team. So no, there's. There's a lot of schools around the country.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Lance, when do you open up?
[00:07:28] Speaker B: We open up February 20th down in Memphis. We're going to go down to Rhodes and they're hosting a four team tournament. So one nine every day. And we went there a couple years ago. Great host, terrific facility. Our team really enjoyed going down there and playing. We open up with, I think at least two of those three were in the national tournament last year. And it's going to be a really tough, you know, opening weekend, but that's what we're after.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: When can you open up at home?
[00:07:55] Speaker B: We, we will actually open up that next weekend, February, I think it's 28th and March 1st, that window. We're going to host a little tournament down here as well. We may have to move a little bit of it to a turf field nearby, but it'll be another great opportunity. We're going to play some really, really good teams early on.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: And Lance, for people who don't know, we're trying to get exhibition games switched for you all. How is that coming?
[00:08:18] Speaker B: It's coming along really well. We did a. We actually sent the survey out to our coaches and I think at this point the, the strong poll vote is 158 to 2 in favor of it. And those who aren't familiar with it, the Division 3 baseballs allowed two exhibition games in the spring and for those of us north of the Mason Dixon line, we're not getting those in. It's. It's pretty much never been played yet. Other sports are able to play their exhibition games, footballs and basketballs because of different weather situations. So we just, we've been working on the flexibility to move it to the fall. If you would choose and your institution would choose, you don't have to but just be more opportunities for student athletes to get competition days, more opportunities for us to evaluate probably help retention. So it's been overwhelming overall sentiment in favor of the proposal.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: And Lance, you talked about a little bit at the convention. With the roster cap at Division 1, are you seeing more of an influx of. Of athletes trying to, to come to Division 3 at your place? You are correct.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Quite a few. And the transfer portal is only part of it because some folks can't get into the transfer portal. You've got some Division 3 didn't require it until it was just voted on this weekend. And junior college and Nai aren't part of the NCAA to go into the pool. So there are a lot, a lot of student athletes looking for their next home and it's probably on the student athletes side. I'm sure it's very frustrating.
There are so many spots for a lot of players.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Jamie, you have any dark horses to make it to Ohio this year?
[00:09:57] Speaker C: I don't know but it seems like every year there's a rookie team who's never been there before. So it's sort going to put a bet on a new rookie team. I like Century Central.
They.
They have a really strong program, a lot of seniors.
I like Penn State, Harrisburg. They haven't been there and they've been knocking on the door for a while. So no, I would have to say of the two teams that haven't been there before, those are the two that have the best chance, I think.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: And Jim, you're coming to Greensboro for their tournament?
[00:10:31] Speaker C: I. I'm planning on being Greensboro.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: What are the dates of that?
I need to put it on my calendar.
[00:10:37] Speaker C: It's like the middle of February. It's like the.
Maybe the 21st, 22nd, something around there. I just, I haven't paid much attention. I'm still sort of as just getting the preseason stuff going through.
I got started about a month earlier than I usually do so it's been pretty relaxed.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: But any players still work left? Who do we need to pay attention to, players wise? Have you gotten any notes back on players?
[00:11:05] Speaker C: I think it's usually it's the same old group.
One of the things that we really, I've really seen looking at rosters and stuff like that, is that I think we're done with COVID All those extra eligibility years are going away.
So if you red shirted, got your extra year, you might be able to still be playing today. But I'm seeing a lot fewer graduate students on rosters.
I'm seeing a lot more teams saying we have a younger team.
So I think that the coaches who could see this coming and with building his team to have more of a veteran team on this year, they're going to do very well.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: And Lance, do we get to the five year where you got five to play? Five.
Do we ever get to that for everybody?
Because I know D2 is thinking about doing and I think Nai is thinking about doing it right.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: I know it was proposed or at least discussed in both of those, in both of those national meetings, but I have not seen it pass yet. I don't know where, where that's headed.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: What's your perspective on that? I'm not coaching anymore. What's your perspective on that as a coach? Is it. Does it clean things up from a red shirting standpoint or is it, is it muddy in the waters?
[00:12:20] Speaker B: It might. I think it would really benefit programs that have institutions that have graduate programs. If you think about folks that are leaving, you know, we have a lot of student athletes now coming in with, you know, their sophomore junior status because they've taken so many college credits or dual enrollment coming in that they're they're graduating in three years and get more and more of those, which lends itself to the institutions that have graduate schools. And graduate programs are just going to benefit from that more so than folks that don't.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: I always think of it from the coach's perspective like you have a freshman on your team that probably is not an everyday player, but could you get them in a bat here and there or pinch run or a pitcher, get him a midweek opportunity where you're not worrying about the red shirt anymore?
We always worry about retention.
I think that helps with retention too, because you might be able to mix a freshman in every once in a while even though they're not an everyday player for you or pitcher for you?
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Get them an opportunity in the game. Even though, you know, decent spread game or whatever the case may be, they get on the field to play and get that experience.
It'll be interesting to see where it goes. It's certainly not a boring time to Be involved in the ncaa. There's interesting policy afoot.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Lance, who do you feel like is going to be good coming out of the Midwest?
[00:13:38] Speaker B: You know, traditional powers? A lot of these. A lot of these folks have been really good for a long time. And what I'm seeing is more and more competition. I think there are more and more people that are able to challenge, you know, kind of the.
The old school, I guess, so to speak. People have been traditionally very circuit.
I think the. Our conference will be very tough. The SLIAC will be very tough. The CCAW is always tough. Northern Athletics Conference is always real good. So there's a bunch of good baseball being played by us and, you know, it's going to be a really fun year, I think.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: What about you, Jim? What are you looking forward to?
[00:14:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we're going to have a lot more competition just because we're now seeing some younger players.
We're seeing, as the coach said, those schools have graduate programs. I'm looking here, and Denison is in the top five program, but they have no graduate program. So if they want to hold on to a player for another year, they can't. They have to go off and they usually end up at Case Western.
So, you know, the Case Westerns, the Johns Hopkins, those, as you say, folks, graduate programs, really been able to sit there and accumulate a lot of experience.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Denison was one of my official visits, by the way.
That was one of my visits. I went to Denison.
[00:15:04] Speaker C: Yeah, that program is slowly built up and so they keep getting better and better each year. So now we're expecting the same things from them. They've had a lot of losses. You know, their pitching staff lost. Lost some pitchers, lost some good hitters, but so is everybody else.
I think the best team coming out with experience is Kane.
The coach there has done a great job of. Even though they lost some the pitcher of the year, there's still plenty of people behind him and so he has a very experienced squad.
So if I had to think, who can.
If the two teams. I'm thinking Kane and Endicott, for me, are my top two teams.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Lance, what have you enjoyed about Division 3? I think it's the purest form of baseball that we have.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. They're playing for the love of the game. And I think that, you know, there's no. All the things that are going on in some of the other levels are not necessarily taking place, at least not at that level in Division 3. And I think we continue to keep the emphasis on the.
The Whole student athlete, not just the athlete part of it, the student piece of it is really critical.
My favorite part of this whole process forever has been going to former players weddings and seeing them and they're still hanging out with 12 or 15 of their college teammates and getting to meet their kids and all that. And this is a long term thing. It's fun. Baseball's awesome. Love coaching it, love being around the guys. I love the relationships. But that's exactly what it's all about, is the relationships.
It's, it's just so fun to look down the road and realize what they, where they are headed because baseball doesn't last forever, how good they are. At some point somebody tells you you're not good enough. And time goes on, I think developing them and helping them. You know, our greatest trophies are them out in the community being good husbands, good fathers, coaching those youth teams and all those kinds of things. So then that's probably my greatest source of pride and joy in this whole thing is looking down for success and.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: You get to be an athletic director, which I, I've said it a million times, we need more coaches as athletic directors. And that's nothing on the ADS out there, but I feel like an athletic director that coached is going to be a better athletic director that that didn't coach. So that's just my personal view.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Well, all I can say is it's certainly been helpful for me perspective wise because I think even talking with our other coaches, I mean, I've probably been in a lot of those situations that they are in, it's helpful. Just the benefit of experience is pretty significant.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Any shout outs you guys want to give before I let you go?
[00:17:42] Speaker C: And I want to echo what the coach says. Division three is about the purest form. In fact, that's what got me into doing this 30 some odd years ago. So it's, it's what drew me in and it would continue to sit there and I just love to see the style of play and a lot of it. I've talked to a lot of coaches and they all focus on one thing. It's the players, the player development.
The game will be there for four years, but you're going to be a lifetime of the experiences you get. And so it's just, it's just a great experience for the athletes and it's a really pure thing.
But yeah, no, I'm really looking forward to the season.
Looking back on my list, you know, Rowan is another team that expected to do well.
Claremont Mud Scripts, they lost their big hitter but they still got a lot coming back. So, as I said, it really is wide open for the number of teams that are going to be able to compete for the championship.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: Lance, any shout outs?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Well, first, Jim, I would say thank you very much for everything you do to promote Division 3 baseball. I mean, you guys are, are phenomenal. And that has come so far from its initial stages. And I just think you guys do a lot to promote. I know that our student athletes, along with plenty of other student athletes in baseball, really appreciate the baseball piece of it. So thanks for what you're doing and keep up the great work. And Brian, thanks for your help with the, the proposal on the abca.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: And that's John. That's not me, that's John.
Shout Out John Litchfield. He's the, he's the best at that stuff. It, like, people don't really know John that well. He is our chief of staff. He's so good at that. The survey stuff. I'm. I am not good at that stuff. And John's really good at it. So I appreciate John. Shout out to John if you listen in, because he helps me so much with that side because I am not good at those things.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: He's awesome. Jim.
I was at the convention and I needed some information from Ryan and I texted him probably too late. And at about 4:03am I got a response.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: I'm an early morning riser, Adam, baby.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: They were getting after really early. So everything that, you know, Craig and your entire staff did, I mean, you guys put on a great show.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: And we are here to help. Like, we're here to serve. Like, that's what we're here for.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: We're here to serve.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: And so any level of coaches, we're here to serve. And whatever our coaches want to get done, we'll try to get done.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: We'll.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: We'll push to try to get things done. So thank you guys for jumping on with me. This will come out next Monday, so appreciate you guys. Yep. Thank you, guys.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Thanks, Ron.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: The game of baseball has grown at all levels, in large part to what our sports writers are doing to shine a light on every level.
Thanks to all of our sports writers for all their hard work and covering the game of baseball. This is your yearly reminder to get out there and support all your local colleges.
Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Kale, Matt west in the ABCA office for all the help on the podcast. Feel free to reach out to me via email rbrownleapca.org Twitter, Instagram or TikTok at CoachBCA or direct message me via the MyABCA app. This is Ryan Brownlee signing off with the American Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks and leave it better for those behind you.
Yep Wait for another day.
[00:21:18] Speaker C: And the world will always return and your life never for yearning and you know that way.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Wait for another D.
