Honors first, then issues.

In case you haven't visited the Rhodes athletics website recently (www.rhodes.edu/athletics), the hits keep rolling in terms of honors for members of the baseball team. Junior first baseman Daniel Vanaman was named a second-team All American by the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA). Vanaman was also honored as a member of the All South Region's first team and the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference's first team. He is the first player in SCAC history to lead the league in hitting two seasons in a row. 

Robert Flanagan, a junior pitcher, was named third team All American by the ABCA, as well as first team All South and, for the second consecutive time, SCAC Pitcher of the Year.  Catcher Matt Beesley, left fielder Richard Hurd (both juniors), and sophomore right fielder Mason Mosby earned second-team All South honors, and shortstop John Robert Bizzell and pitcher Andy Holt, both sophomores, received honorable mention. Beesley, Hurd, Bizzell, Mosby, and Holt were also first team All Conference, along with junior pitcher Chris Catalanotto and, as mentioned, Flanagan and Vanaman.

In all likelihood, every one of these players will be back in 2008.

The "issues" involving this year's postseason include, obviously, why Rhodes did not receive a national championship bid despite its 36-10 record, which included five wins and only two losses in games with other nationally-ranked teams. That bone has been gnawed pretty thoroughly. Clearly, if a national championship is out there to be won, Rhodes is going to want to win it. One need only recall British mountain climber George Leigh Mallory's reply when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest: "Because it's there."

The issue I want to put on the table is a much broader one: Should there be a national championship at all in Division III? And I want to answer that question by saying that, just maybe, the answer is no.

Why even suggest something so heretical?  Several reasons. First, national championships are an artifact of big time Division I athletics that, like other maladies of DI sports such as longer schedules, nontraditional practice seasons, and a focus on winning over participation, have trickled down to DIII. Standing vigil against creeping DI-ism is something Division III should do more of, not less.

Second, when national championships exist, they may warp the thinking of DIII conferences. An example: in preparation for the 2007 season, SCAC made a thoughtful decision to go from the previous regimen of teams playing two series, totaling five games, against each division rival in favor of single four-game series. The decision made sense because it reduced travel costs and, even more important, travel time away from campus and classes.

But check out the SCAC message board at www.d3baseball.com to see how the national championship tail is threatening to wag the scheduling dog. A major theme of recent posts has been how to get more than one SCAC team into the national championship. One culprit that has been identified is the four-game series, because it forces teams to use up a starting pitcher who might otherwise throw in a midweek nonconference game. So for the sake of winning more midweek games, some are arguing, the old system needs to be restored. That argument, and the threat to a good reform that it poses, wouldn't even arise if the national championship tournament did not exist.

Third, individual colleges also may be tempted to succumb to this kind of thinking. Once a team catches the scent of a national championship, winning can become, well, the only thing. Coaches may be judged not by how well their students do in class or develop as individuals but rather by how many wins the team posts against prominent regional opponents. Scheduling may be driven, even at the risk of unnecessary missed-class time, by the need to make sure those big games that count so much in postseason bids get played. The pressure on players to spend ever more time on the game, at the expense of other valuable activities of college life, may get ramped up. And so on.

One DIII athletic director, quoted in William G. Bowen and Sarah A. Levin's Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values (Princeton University Press, 2003), writes: "The pressure to reach the postseason--and in some cases to compete for a national championship--often leads to many of our most serious problems: excessive practice time, missed class time, overemphasis on winning, limited time to pursue intellectual and/or cocurricular pursuits."  Another warns: "Once a Division III team has tasted success at the national level, anything less becomes difficult to swallow."

Fourth, according to Bowen and Levin, 85 percent of the NCAA's budget for Division III is spent on national championships. You don't have to think hard to think of other good uses that could be made of that money in DIII.

Finally, it's worth noting that over the years Division III has become a hodgepodge of 424 colleges and universities, some of which are small liberal arts colleges like Rhodes and some of which are large state universities. Bowen and Levin report that if you just look at the DIII schools whose name begins with the letter C, you find institutions with undergraduate enrollments ranging from 529 to 11,997. Liberal arts colleges that decide to chase a national championship face the reckless challenge of competing with institutions many times larger, and thus the added temptation to turn their programs into something even more DI-like than they should be.

Far be it from me to suggest that Coach Jeff Cleanthes and the Rhodes athletic department have succumbed to any such temptations. I am confident they haven't. But as long as national championships exist, the incentive will be there for DIII schools to do whatever it takes to pursue them, and some of those things may involve compromising the healthy balance between athletics, academics, and the other important aspects of college life.

Daniel Killary, 3B, class of 2007

I have been sitting and waiting this last week hoping to hear good news on Selection Sunday so that I can have just a few more days of playing the greatest game on the planet.  While this anxious time has been passing, I have tried to reflect on this unforgettable season and my career as a Rhodes baseball player. I have been given the valuable gift of being a part of the very worst and the very best baseball teams of my life in the last four years and seeing the change occur before my eyes. In my first two seasons our record totaled 24-51; in the last two we have been 64-25 (with hopefully a chance to improve this record even more).

I came to Rhodes to be play baseball and get a great education. The first couple years I contributed to the team by starting at shortstop, but the frustrations came from the numbers on the scoreboard. I came from a large baseball program in Houston and was used to winning more than losing. The remarkable thing throughout even these lean years was that the coaching staff remained so amazingly close to all the players, which helped to build this program. As I have read the underclassmen’s posts, I’ve realized that they made no negative remarks at all about the team, which shows how much the team has progressed. 

Moving to this season, I knew that as a senior captain, I had a major responsibility to motivate this highly talented team to achieve even more than last year’s accomplishment of having the best turn around season in DIII. Throughout this season we not only achieved greatness on the field, but also had a bond among teammates which was like no other team on which I have played. Many teams have guys who just look out for #1, but playing DIII baseball means everyone on the team has an important role. Maybe the best thing about our team this year was that we always seemed to be the underdog. Even after beating many ranked teams and having a sixteen-game winning streak, we were left off the national polls and rated low in regional rankings.

There are two ways a team can respond to lack of recognition and we took the right path by making a negative into a motivating positive.  We ended the regular season with the most wins in Rhodes history (thirty-six) but had a tough SCAC tournament and did not receive an automatic bid. Many great teams have off days (#1-ranked Wooster lost their conference tournament yesterday) but still deserve to play more baseball. Now just hours remain before we find out if our season will continue. No matter the outcome I know that this team has achieved something that deserves to be rewarded and if we get the bid WE WILL BE READY.

I will not be drafted by a major-league team in June and thus will be moving back to Houston to pursue a career in banking. These four years I fell so fortunate to have had a top-class education that has prepared me for the future and to play a high level of baseball.  I am confident that the Rhodes baseball team can accomplish even more next year and finally become recognized as one of the premier programs in DIII. I will cherish forever the countless friendships and memories I have made with my teammates these last four years and I wish them good luck for what lies ahead.

Richard Hurd, LF, class of 2008

Before I came to Rhodes College I played very competitive baseball on my high school and summer league teams--every year the metro-Atlanta area produces some of the finest baseball talent in the nation. Nearly all of my teammates, or at least those who shared my dedication and passion for the game, saw themselves as Division I-caliber ballplayers. Like most of my friends and teammates, I too hoped for nothing less.  The way I saw it, because Division I baseball would be the most competitive, that’s the road I wanted to pursue. 

When I decided to come to Rhodes, I had some concerns, although overall I felt good about my decision. After all, I knew that Rhodes would be able to provide me with a perfect environment to get a great education, both in academics and in adjusting to college life. I was and always have identified myself as a student who plays baseball, and not the other way around. But, it was not Rhodes’s academic reputation but rather Coach Jeff Cleanthes that attracted me to the school. He went out of his way to see that I came to Rhodes to be his centerfielder and leadoff hitter, and that is exactly what happened. Coach Cleanthes and the assistant coach, Rob Schrier, were both centerfielders, leadoff hitters, and prolific base stealers during their collegiate careers, and so I knew that Rhodes offered a perfect situation for me to learn the game and develop as a player.

Still, I felt that in a way I had made a kind of a tradeoff.  I assumed that I would be trading a great education and college experience for a team that would truly be able to compete and strive for excellence on the field. I was coming into a program that went 13-23 in 2004 , the year before I came, and by the end of my freshman year our 11-28 record hardly seemed an improvement. Coach Cleanthes wasn’t fazed, however. He emphatically stated at the end of the 2004 season that “we have what it takes” to be one of the best Division III teams in the country. I think that our 2006 and 2007 seasons have proved him right.

I remember talking with Coach Cleanthes over the phone as a senior in high school.  He told me that his goal was to turn the Rhodes baseball program around to the point of being able to compete for a national championship. As my teammates and I wait to see whether or not we will get a bid to the NCAA Division III regional tournament, we are confident. We are confident that we deserve to go to the tournament. We are confident that we have a legitimate shot at winning the region and going to the World Series in Appleton. During the entire season I have yelled, “The road to Appleton!” in our team huddles. I say it in jest, but we are all confident that we have what it takes to compete. In fact, we know we do, but for now, it’s time to just let the chips fall where they may. 

John Robert Bizzell, SS, class of 2009

When I decided to come to Rhodes, baseball was not on my mind.  Initially I planned to play soccer, but a week before Orientation Coach Rob Schrier called and invited me to participate in the fall baseball tryouts.

One of my initial doubts was about the quality of play in DIII. But I found out very quickly that the talent level is really high in DIII baseball. When I was in high school, I looked down on DIII. I wondered who would want to play at that level. But now that I'm here I want to tell everyone what I've learned from my DIII experience.

First, DIII athletes are true student-athletes.  One is able to receive a world-class education while playing on a team. Second, freshmen really get a chance to walk on the field and play a major role, which is one of the main reasons I decided to play. Third, every player is here for the love of the game--period. Not one guy on the team has an athletic scholarship. Compared to DI and DII scholarship players, DIII athletes play for the same reason they played Little League.

Switching gears from past to present, our season has been very memorable, and within a few days we will find out if more memories will be made. Coming off last year's season and losing only one starter, I had high expectations for this year. In spring practice before the season started, I noticed one thing above all: that we were a young and hungry team. We had the talent to make a major splash in the DIII ranks. We came out of the gates in a fury and won twenty-two of our first twenty-four games. We have gone on to win thirty-six games so far and have broken the Rhodes record for wins. We have been ranked as high as twenty-fifth in the nation and fifth in the South. We won the SCAC Eastern Division title but in a very disappointing weekend let the conference championship slip through our fingers, leaving us in a state of limbo waiting for the at-large bids to come out for a regional tournament. I have no doubt--none--that if we receive a bid we will win the region and head to Appleton, Wisconsin, for the DIII World Series.  All we can do now is wait and hope for the fair shot that we deserve.

I asked four students who play for the Lynx to write brief personal essays reflecting on their experience with the team. I could have asked any four of the thirty-three men on the roster--that's how thoughtful and articulate our players are. But, based partly on who I ran into at the Rat on Wednesday and partly on my esteem for these four, I invited Andy Boucher '10, John Robert Bizzell '09, Richard Hurd '08, and Daniel Killary '07.  I'll be posting their essays as they come in.

Andy Boucher, 2B, class of 2010

When I decided to come to Rhodes, I didn't quite know what to expect from Rhodes baseball. I did not know what DIII baseball was all about, and I thought it might be a step down from high school. I was wrong. The competition has been very strong, and the games are much more competitive than I ever expected. This makes it that much more satisfying that we have had such a successful season.

I had other worries about moving from high school to college baseball. I was especially worried about making the adjustment from leading a team as a senior in high school to being the lowest on the totem pole as a freshman in college. It could have been a hard pill to swallow. But the upperclassmen and coaches really made the adjustment manageable. Coaches give freshmen a legitimate opportunity to play, and the upperclassmen show the freshmen due respect. The things I am most appreciative of this year are the relationships I have with the older guys on the team. After road trips, spring break, and (so far) forty-six games, I have had some absolutely unforgettable experiences with these guys.

Overall, my first year as a DIII baseball player has been incredible. I have learned a great deal about what it means to be a true student-athlete. I have also experienced a sixteen-game winning streak that included a ten-day road trip. Best of all, I get to say that I am part of what could be the greatest team in Rhodes history, and that is something irreplaceable.