Endless Opportunities
A wise man once told me, “There are four roles in baseball. Players, coaches, umpires, and fans. You can’t be more than one, you have to choose one and stick to it.” As I look at how my personal relationship with the game of baseball has grown, molded, and shifted throughout my life, I see how that quote rings truthfully and has always followed me around. However, as yet again my relationship with baseball has shifted, I see that he left out a role even I knew little about before this year, the manager staff that puts on the behind-the-scenes operations of a baseball team.
Unlike most of the manager staff with the University of Iowa Baseball team, I am from Colorado. In Colorado, high school baseball is played in the spring and a separate summer season happens during June and July (I like the Iowa high school system way better with school-affiliated baseball starting in the summer).
After I finished playing baseball in high school, I knew I wanted to stick around the game as much as possible. Right after the state tournament my senior year, I got three days off and found myself right back in the dugout trying to win another game, except I had shifted roles, I was now a coach. That summer I got to see a different side of the game and through coaching incoming high school freshman that season, I learned so much more that went into a baseball game that I never had paid attention to. Coaching is a fascination of mine and I have never been able to explain it, I really enjoy helping players learn more about the game and trying to help them reach their goals. This past summer, I again got an opportunity to coach for my high school summer program in the topsy-turvy year that has been 2020. In a shortened season, I got to do something most, unfortunately, did not: work. From hitting infield to fieldwork, and even coaching third base, I gained some valuable experience that I will carry with me into my future and plan to continue coaching baseball. I’m really grateful for Todd Hernandez and the Eaton Summer Baseball Program for the opportunities that I have received working with them.
I also got a really unique opportunity this summer to continue working in the game of baseball, as an Operations Intern with Prep Baseball Report Colorado. Here I got to learn a totally different side of the game I had only brushed up against when I was a player. For those who don’t know what PBR does, they are a scouting service that puts on showcase events for prep athletes all around the country that are looking to get their names out to college coaches and hopefully find a place to play baseball at the next level. One quote that I think best represents what PBR does is from Mike Anderson, the Scouting Director of PBR Colorado, “We want to find the right place for these guys. Whether it be Division 1, 2, 3, Jucos, NAIA, you name it. We want to help kids find a college that best fits them and their needs.” For PBR, I got to do a lot of the things I loved: be on a baseball field all day, help players reach their goals, and even some last-minute fieldwork. Except this time, I got to mess around with some of the best technology money can buy in the player development world of the sport. I got to run TrackMan and Blast Motion technologies for players and had the opportunity to be up close and personal with this valuable information. I also worked as a camera/video operator and learned some of the intricacies of capturing the right content. Most of recruiting in 2020, and most likely in the future, will be through video and learning what is important to capture and hearing from high-level baseball industry professionals on what they’re looking for when scouting a prospect remotely was an awesome experience. The opportunities I got in a short amount of time with PBR were invaluable and I’m so grateful for the short time I got to spend with the great people out there.
From there, I went through the multi-staged interview process to becoming an Iowa Baseball manager and got the job as a member of the On-Field staff. I am so grateful to be a part of the best manager staff in the country and I can’t wait to get to #MoveTheNeedle every day. I’m excited to be a part of such a great group of people and I’ve already learned so much. The experiences I get on a day-to-day basis are really unique and I get to do something I love every day: be on a baseball field and help players reach their goals. I would like to thank Mike Anderson with PBR Colorado and Todd Hernandez with Eaton Baseball for the experiences I got this summer. And I’d also like to thank Ryan Gorman, Adam Schuck, and Sam Bornstein for preparing us all for an unprecedented season and look forward to continuing to work with all the great members of the Iowa Baseball Manager staff. Go Hawks!
