Baseball question

Baseball Insider Board
#1

I don’t understand why Vandy is so attractive to top baseball talent. They have a JC-size ball field with JC-size crowds. They play on Astro-dirt for a goofy coach, and they receive little financial aid to cover the $60/yr tuition burden. I don’t get it.

My question is about their pitching mound: Is it an advantage for the VandyBoys to have Astro-dirt on the mound? I believe they are the only SEC school with a rug. (The Viles play on an ugly rug, too, but they have a dirt mound.)

All ball fields have unique differences, but their mound seems significantly different than what opposing pitchers are accustomed to during a game.
Most probably throw off of something similar at indoor pitching facilities. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
(Not blaming the series loss on this issue.)

#2

As a private school, they can provide much more tuition, etc. to their players.

I would think that turf is fine, but put dirt for the mound, sliding pits, and batter’s box. But then that would make sense.

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#3

I love Phil’s description of the field “fake grass” and “fake dirt”. That sums it up for me.

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#4

That “goofy coach” has outpaced DVH in W’s (both came to SEC in 2003). I’d say he’s dotting his I’s and crossing his T’s. :sunglasses:

#5

Vanderbilt is a very prestigious school to state the obvious. The Dores recruit different geographic areas (Eastern seaboard + Cali) in baseball than the Hogs. College baseball is now a country club sport with a lot of kids from upper-middle-class backgrounds on up. The Vandy brand carries a lot of weight up this way (I live in Connecticut).

#6

Vandy’s endowment is such that if you are admitted, your expenses are basically covered. They call it the Opportunity Vanderbilt program. All students benefit, but it amounts to a full ride in a sport that doesn’t have full rides. And it’s not need based; they don’t care about family income for this program.

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#7

That has a lot to do with it and it’s not fair because not everybody can provide the same things… They have done great things with their money and won championships and always compete at a high level so now then basically they don’t have to really recruit the program recruits itself.

I agree about the pathetic field.Amazes me that they don’t try to build a new park or do something to upgrade that one because it is just not appealing… at least to me it’s not.

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#8

Yes
What Jeff said

Vandy has a tremendous recruiting advantage

I don’t know if they waive some of the admission academic requirements or not

Duke used to (maybe still) do that
They called it “Dukes dirty little secret”
They had no absolute academic requirement for admission, so they could take any great athlete they wanted (for basketball)

#9

Why don’t they use that advantage in other sports?

#10

I’ve never been a fan of Corbin. Not sure why. But he certainly was very gracious about DVH and our team. He praised Dave’s coaching and record in his presser last weekend. We live in a 55+ community and spend a lot of time visiting with neighbors. One neighbor has a grandson that played for Vandy fairly recently. They praised Corbin big time. Said he cared for the boys and families. They thought the world of him.

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#11

Basketball and football are full ride sports so Opportunity Vanderbilt is not an advantage. It should help in other “equivalency” sports, and Vandy is generally really good in golf which is an equivalency sport.

Scott, one reason they were so bad in football for so long is that they wouldn’t bend their admission standards. I think they relax them a little for athletes now but not much. It’s still harder to get in for a jock than at most schools.

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#12

It’s only an advantage in sports where full scholarships aren’t awarded. They can essentially award a full baseball scholarship while other schools cannot. Of course, in football, other schools also award full scholarships. At least this is the way I understand it works to Vandy’s advantage

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#13

Billy, they have a fancy baseball center behind that left field wall that opened 4-5 years ago. It’s nice but not as nice as the Hunt Center. And with nice weather and a good team, there were 1000 empty seats Saturday and would have been more if there weren’t so many Hog fans there. A 7000 seat stadium would be a waste – and there’s nowhere on the Vandy campus to put it if they had the fan support. Hawkins Field is wedged between the football stadium and Memorial Gym; I saw at least one foul ball that landed in the east stands of the football stadium, and several more that went into the football concourse.

That’s probably why they don’t have softball – nowhere to put a field.

#14

Didn’t say he wasn’t a good coach. My eyes and ears tell me he is goofy.

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#15

So they are not constrained by the 11.7 scholarship limit like everyone else? How did they pull that off and why do the other SEC schools allow it to continue? (I dislike Vandy even more now!)

#16

Oh they still have 11.7. The OV program is above and beyond that. Just like DVH can use lottery scholarships for instate kids, freeing up money for out of state recruits. Louisiana has something similar with it’s lottery. So does Georgia.

#17

Add Tennessee to that list.

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#18

Good info. Thanks

#19

But to be clear Opportunity Vanderbilt is a bigger advantage than our lottery scholarships are.

#20

I’m about 95% sure Kevin Kopps was a walk-on but he is very smart and probably got academic money, although not the lottery scholarship that only goes to Arkansas kids