We should easily be able to fund full scholarships for the whole baseball team...

35 scholarships x $20,000 per year tuition/room/board = only $700,000 per year. (11.7 of those are already covered)

Our endowment is now nearly $500 million, I imagine we should be able to fund full 'academic' scholarships for the whole baseball team if we really wanted to.

We could (find a way to legally) create a new scholarship fund with 51% regular students 49% baseball players and get alums to donate for it. How much would we need to create the scholarship? Is the principal left alone like the endowment?

Think about how much our athletic revenues have grown and how much State has spent on athletic facilities over the past 10 years.

$700,000 per year is only 0.7% of our annual athletic revenues. Over the past 10 years we have spent/are spending:

$72 million on Davis Wade expansion
$55 million on Dudy Noble Field
$25 million on football facility
$11 million on basketball practice facility

We should be able to afford to fund full scholarships for the whole baseball team and should not use that as an excuse for recruiting or getting a new coach.



Edit to add: I KNOW the NCAA limits baseball athletic scholarships to 11.7. I'm talking about in addition, through academic scholarships, etc. (I thought that was obvious).

Everyone talks about Vandy using their 4 billion dollar endowment to fill out baseball scholarships with academic scholarships and giving them an advantage in recruiting. I know we don't have a 4 billion dollar endowment and we also can't just set aside money for baseball players. But since it would only take at most $700k/year (at MSU), our $500 million endowment and $50-100 million in athletic donations over 10 years should be enough to do what Vandy does for their baseball players.

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Originally Posted by MedDawg

35 scholarships x $20,000 per year tuition/room/board = only $700,000 per year. (11.7 of those are already covered)

Our endowment is now nearly $500 million, I imagine we should be able to fund full 'academic' scholarships for the whole baseball team if we really wanted to.

We could (find a way to legally) create a new scholarship fund with 51% regular students 49% baseball players and get alums to donate for it. How much would we need to create the scholarship? Is the principal left alone like the endowment?

Think about how much our athletic revenues have grown and how much State has spent on athletic facilities over the past 10 years.

$700,000 per year is only 0.7% of our annual athletic revenues. Over the past 10 years we have spent/are spending:

$72 million on Davis Wade expansion
$55 million on Dudy Noble Field
$25 million on football facility
$11 million on basketball practice facility

We should be able to afford to fund full scholarships for the whole baseball team and should not use that as an excuse for recruiting or getting a new coach.

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The NCAA does not allow more.

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Originally Posted by MedDawg

35 scholarships x $20,000 per year tuition/room/board = only $700,000 per year. (11.7 of those are already covered)

Our endowment is now nearly $500 million, I imagine we should be able to fund full 'academic' scholarships for the whole baseball team if we really wanted to.

We could (find a way to legally) create a new scholarship fund with 51% regular students 49% baseball players and get alums to donate for it. How much would we need to create the scholarship? Is the principal left alone like the endowment?

Think about how much our athletic revenues have grown and how much State has spent on athletic facilities over the past 10 years.

$700,000 per year is only 0.7% of our annual athletic revenues. Over the past 10 years we have spent/are spending:

$72 million on Davis Wade expansion
$55 million on Dudy Noble Field
$25 million on football facility
$11 million on basketball practice facility

We should be able to afford to fund full scholarships for the whole baseball team and should not use that as an excuse for recruiting or getting a new coach.

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If it were that easy to do , I imagine it would have been done when Polk was our coach. The key is the 11.7 you mentioned. The max the NCAA allows. That is why baseball programs have to fund partial scholarships and hope for a player being on a scholastic scholarship when possible.

The key is it has to be the "same standards" as regular students. So, we should give them leadership scholarships based on the windfall. We can do it on a case by case basis- waiving out of state tuition if a player qualifies and etc.

This is why JC baseball is pretty strong in MIssissippi.... some of the marginal D1 guys are going JC because they will get a full ride compared to taking a chance on getting cut from 35 man roster and not getting any $....

The way to do it would be through the Bulldog Club. Endow a scholarship for baseball. It can be done....I did it.

I didn't think it was allowed in NCAA rules.

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Originally Posted by drunkernhelldawg

I didn't think it was allowed in NCAA rules.

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The only way you could do it was make it where all students were eligible... like the Georgia "Hope" scholarship

Vanderbilt has such high cost of attendance, it's easy to put all of the baseball players on need based scholarships, that it's huge endowment provides for.

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Originally Posted by Leeshouldveflanked

This is why JC baseball is pretty strong in MIssissippi.... some of the marginal D1 guys are going JC because they will get a full ride compared to taking a chance on getting cut from 35 man roster and not getting any $....

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This is also why we should be using the JUCO system more.

Tanner Poole, Cole Marsh, Spencer Price off this team alone. Ryan Rigby, Trey Jolly, Luke Reynolds from the last few.

I like your thinking, Meddawg. I think the problem is going to be how to make it appear to be fair across the board, like a lottery.

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Originally Posted by Leeshouldveflanked

This is why JC baseball is pretty strong in MIssissippi.... some of the marginal D1 guys are going JC because they will get a full ride compared to taking a chance on getting cut from 35 man roster and not getting any $....

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Eh....nationally.....it's not that strong. And if anything it's watered down. The "marginal" guys you are talking about are going JUCO because it's their best option at that point. We're not losing players to Hinds and Jones.

If you have a legit minimum SEC offer- from MSU or Ole Miss- players are going to take that any and every day over a JUCO offer. It's because it's a statistically better path to the pros. Which is the ultimate goal- get to MLB- not see who can get the biggest scholarship offer.

The thing about JUCO is there is a lot of risk if you actually have a MSU or Ole Miss offer because if you take the JUCO offer there is no guarantee that you will get a SEC offer after JUCO. And you could end up at Belhaven.

The guys that get cut from the 35 man roster are always walk-ons. If you cut a scholarship player you have to play with 34 guys. Just adding that to the conversation.

Some of the guys that are legit prospects are going JUCO because they want to try to get drafted in the top 10-15 so that they can go pro and don't have any real intention of playing in the SEC or anywhere else that's not pro. Like former MSU commit Pearson McMahan. He was drafted in the 19th round and then returned to JUCO and got drafted in the 4th round. There aren't really very many of those types of players and they are a waste of time for MSU to go after because they are going to go pro. The problem is those are the types of JUCO players you need to make an impact on the national stage but again, they rarely go to the SEC or any other college baseball program.

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Originally Posted by 5049

This is also why we should be using the JUCO system more.

Tanner Poole, Cole Marsh, Spencer Price off this team alone. Ryan Rigby, Trey Jolly, Luke Reynolds from the last few.

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Poole- Role player for us who many of our fans constantly complain about.
Marsh- Middle relief/midweek starter type who has been suspended once already this year.
Price- Good closer. You can find good role player types like this in JUCO. Not really a MLB prospect though.
Rigby- Sidearm guy. Another good type of player you can find in JUCO. At West Alabama now and not really a MLB prospect.
Jolly- Not on the team anymore
Reynolds- Not on the team anymore either. Even most of those that think he should have been kept on the team understand it would have been in a reserve role and on the roster he was somewhere between player 33-38 out of 35 and may not have been on the SEC roster.

You can find some good role type players in MS JUCO. Which we do need. But we can't make a living off of it and expect to win National Titles.

You can say that USM's JUCO guys kicked our ass. But I think we all would agree that there were some obvious extenuating circumstances and none of them were in our favor. One of those was the fact that we started four freshmen in the field against a veteran team. By the time those freshmen are juniors they are going to be much better than the players that USM has.

We should follow the formula that Florida, LSU, and Vanderbilt have. Because we realistically can and it's a proven formula in Omaha.

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Originally Posted by AROB44

The way to do it would be through the Bulldog Club. Endow a scholarship for baseball. It can be done....I did it.

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If this is true, I wonder why more people don't? I'm just saying after all these years and as much as our fans follow baseball I would have thought that this would have been brought up at some point.

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Originally Posted by AROB44

The way to do it would be through the Bulldog Club. Endow a scholarship for baseball. It can be done....I did it.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

If this is true, I wonder why more people don't? I'm just saying after all these years and as much as our fans follow baseball I would have thought that this would have been brought up at some point.

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Is the goal of such a Bulldog Club scholarship just to free up more operating revenue for the baseball team? That would make sense, and it seems like baseball fans could do that, like Todd suggests. Lots of private schools have endowed athletic scholarships. I remember hearing a few years ago that Stanford wanted to fully endow all of their athletic scholarships (not sure if they reached that goal).

When I read the original quote above, it seemed like the thought was that a Bulldog Club scholarship for baseball could get around the 11.7 and/or minimum 25% rules. Until the rules are changed or Mississippi State receives some windfall that allows the school to offer academic or leadership scholarships to all students who are at whatever minimum level so a lot of baseball players could also qualify, how would an endowed scholarship increase our competitiveness, aside from freeing up some money to pay quality coaches or (legitimately) support recruiting efforts?

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

The key is it has to be the "same standards" as regular students. So, we should give them leadership scholarships based on the windfall. We can do it on a case by case basis- waiving out of state tuition if a player qualifies and etc.

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Disagree. I don't have a problem with them getting academic scholarships if they qualify. But they shouldn't be treated special just because they play baseball. Remember ... we are first and foremost an academic institution.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

If this is true, I wonder why more people don't? I'm just saying after all these years and as much as our fans follow baseball I would have thought that this would have been brought up at some point.

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In not sure what he's talking about. But you can't legally give money just set to go to a baseball player.

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Originally Posted by RocketDawg

Disagree. I don't have a problem with them getting academic scholarships if they qualify. But they shouldn't be treated special just because they play baseball. Remember ... we are first and foremost an academic institution.

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That's true. But most of our baseball players come in with GPA's of 3.0 or much higher in many instances. Plus, I would say being a likely captain on a baseball team while excelling at the sport would qualify as being a solid leader. At least IMO.

And what I just said is probably very minimal of what they do off the field in high school- I'm sure most play other sports, are active in their church and FCA.

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Originally Posted by 5049

I like your thinking, Meddawg. I think the problem is going to be how to make it appear to be fair across the board, like a lottery.

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Yeah, the only problem is these two words: Title IX. If we wanted to pursue more schollies, more would have to go to Volleyball/Softball/Soccer, making it fair across the board is our only holdback.

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Originally Posted by Choctaw Dawg

Yeah, the only problem is these two words: Title IX. If we wanted to pursue more schollies, more would have to go to Volleyball/Softball/Soccer, making it fair across the board is our only holdback.

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No it?s not. We?re not talking about athletic scholarships.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

We should follow the formula that Florida, LSU, and Vanderbilt have. Because we realistically can and it's a proven formula in Omaha.

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I agree it?s a good formula for those schools but we are not them. I disagree that it?s a good formula for us. We can?t offer the extra money.

As for the JUCOs, I did not list them to talk about each one specifically. The point is that it is a pot of talented players right under our nose within our state borders

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Originally Posted by 5049

I agree it?s a good formula for those schools but we are not them. I disagree that it?s a good formula for us. We can?t offer the extra money.

As for the JUCOs, I did not list them to talk about each one specifically. The point is that it is a pot of talented players right under our nose within our state borders

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We do offer extra money- it's just that Ron Polk conditioned many of our fans into thinking that we couldn't. We've been doing it for years. We just use it in the form of scholarship money and grants and waivers depending on the player.

The money issue is incredibly overrated. I always laugh at people that come to the conclusion that guys that go to school and intend to leave after three years without a degree to play a sport are somehow at the same time enamored with Vanderbilt education. The reason they are going to Vanderbilt is because their coaches have shown that they can get them to MLB- that's really all they want to do. They had a pitching coach named Derek Johnson who is now the Brewers pitching coach who started everything for them. Now they have another elite pitching coach in Scott Brown who has shown that he can get players to MLB.

We absolutely can recruit like them- Cann was well on his way to doing that. We are probably going to hire someone else that uses that same formula. The problem has been that we've been doing what you suggested- go after a ton of JUCO's- and it has caused us to be fairly unstable- terrible 2015, win the SEC in 2016. What Cohen did was essentially the same thing Jackie did with JUCO's.

I didn't list those players to run them down- just to illustrate what the Mississippi JUCO leagues produce because those guys that you listed were some of the better players in that league. A team of mostly MS JUCO players is going to get us a USM/La Tech level squad but in the SEC which would translate to middle of the league at best with a team like what USM has now and what La Tech has had recently.

We already get the best in Mississippi out of the high school ranks- and we develop them into quality SEC players more times than not. Look at the list of players that we have had that have gone to MLB recently:

P- Graveman, Holder, Girodo, Lindgren, Stratton, Hudson will likely be up this year and was a first round pick, Pilkington will likely be a first round pick this year, Easley, Moreland, Tyler Moore, Adam Frazier, Hunter Renfroe, Rooker was a first round pick and may make it up this year, Woodruff, and Jake Mangum is a consensus top 100 prospect.

Out of that group- ONE MS JUCO player and actually only ONE overall that we've recently sent to MLB and that's Tyler Moore. If I remember correctly he went to Meridian because of grades and was a Dandy Dozen player so he was hardly in the class of players you listed. Every other player that I listed regardless of what state they were from came to MSU directly from high school. And that includes some guys that have some impressive accolades- Johnny Bench winners, SEC Triple Crown winners, All-Americans, and several first round picks.

And to pile on- if Jacob Robson makes it to MLB in a couple of years, and he is listed on the Tigers top 40 prospect list- we will have produced just as many MLB players from Canada as we have from the MS JUCO system the past 10 years.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

We absolutely can recruit like them- Cann was well on his way to doing that. We are probably going to hire someone else that uses that same formula. The problem has been that we've been doing what you suggested- go after a ton of JUCO's- and it has caused us to be fairly unstable- terrible 2015, win the SEC in 2016. What Cohen did was essentially the same thing Jackie did with JUCO's.

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I mean, I just disagree, no reason to go back and forth, but I do want to debate one thing - 2015. That was caused by the sophomore class' inability to step up, not a JUCO or anyone else. That was on Dakota Hudson and Zac Houston. With those two guys we avoid the ten or so 8th inning flameouts, and we make a regional.

Really, the only inconsistent year Cohen had was 2015 and it was because of those young pitchers. Hudson and Houston were two high profile signees and we only got one year out of both, guess I could throw Vance Tatum in here too

Something needs to be done about Title IX and the 11.7 limit. More H.S. baseball players need to have the option to go to college instead of toiling away in the minors while missing out on an education. Having something to fall back on if the MLB dream doesn't materialize. That's more important than say for instance the Univ of Iowa having to build a lake to accommodate a new Women's rowing team to maintain Title IX compliance and other Universities simply having to drop their baseball program all together based on this very flawed law.

I don't pretend to know any details about how this works, but I know that all I hear about is how school X or Y has such a huge advantage with giving out scholarships.

Nobody ever talks about how much a player would owe after all the aid money is applied. Isn't that really all that matters? I know State is a very good value. While we don't have any of those so-called advantages, I'd say most of those schools have higher tuition and living costs that negates at least some of that advantage.

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Originally Posted by bulldogcountry1

I don't pretend to know any details about how this works, but I know that all I hear about is how school X or Y has such a huge advantage with giving out scholarships.

Nobody ever talks about how much a player would owe after all the aid money is applied. Isn't that really all that matters? I know State is a very good value. While we don't have any of those so-called advantages, I'd say most of those schools have higher tuition and living costs that negates at least some of that advantage.

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It's basically summed up like this:

Vandy and other private schools can give out need-based aid to poorer kids who qualify academically, I'm talking, the whole scholarship. Of course, they have to qualify. Private schools are a whole other ball of wax. They certainly have advantages, but I also think they can get caught with no 'middle class' on their teams.

A school with a lotto can entice in-state kids to stay home while spending their 11.7 elsewhere. However, this is where your total cost-of-attendance comes in. I would imagine the real benefactor of these scholarships are cheaper public schools in lotto states, like Georgia Southern, Kennesaw State, UCF, Memphis, Louisiana Lafayette, Louisiana Tech, etc.

I am sure Mississippi also has some scholarship money available in other places, that could replace a lotto. Nobody seems to be able to tell us where that is, however. That is the kicker.

The Mississippi JUCO system is cheap, cheap, cheap for us. Kids can develop, and you often don't need to use a scholarship on them upon graduation.

I can't imagine that Cohen (and many other coaches) don't have a spreadsheet with cost-of-attendance figures for colleges all over, combined with available scholarships, in order to target kids. I always figured best bang for our buck as far as high schoolers is obviously Mississippi and then Alabama after that. After those are exhausted, you'd need to go to a lotto state with really expensive schools and sell them on playing at MSU rather than Kennesaw or MTSU, for less money.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

We do offer extra money- it's just that Ron Polk conditioned many of our fans into thinking that we couldn't. We've been doing it for years. We just use it in the form of scholarship money and grants and waivers depending on the player.

The money issue is incredibly overrated. I always laugh at people that come to the conclusion that guys that go to school and intend to leave after three years without a degree to play a sport are somehow at the same time enamored with Vanderbilt education. The reason they are going to Vanderbilt is because their coaches have shown that they can get them to MLB- that's really all they want to do. They had a pitching coach named Derek Johnson who is now the Brewers pitching coach who started everything for them. Now they have another elite pitching coach in Scott Brown who has shown that he can get players to MLB.

We absolutely can recruit like them- Cann was well on his way to doing that. We are probably going to hire someone else that uses that same formula.

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Thank you. This answers my questions and confirms some things I wondered about.

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Originally Posted by AROB44

The way to do it would be through the Bulldog Club. Endow a scholarship for baseball. It can be done....I did it.

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Tell us more, is that to help with the 11.7 or is it for an additional scholarship and can you pick which player?

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Originally Posted by shannondawg

Tell us more, is that to help with the 11.7 or is it for an additional scholarship and can you pick which player?

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Doing anything through the BC would only be funding the 11.7.
As explained the only way you can give the baseball players more is to give ALL STUDENTS more. If you tried to give more to the baseball players specifically that would be against NCAA rules. The NCAA limit is 11.7 and you can't skirt that.

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Originally Posted by shannondawg

Tell us more, is that to help with the 11.7 or is it for an additional scholarship and can you pick which player?

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No. You can't. I don't know what he's referring to but you can't just provide an additional scholarship. Just can't.

Sorry if I confused anyone. What I meant was that all 11.7 scholarships could be endowed. Not that anything in excess of the 11.7 could be added. And...no, you can't pick a specific player. Also, I did it way back in 1988 in memory of my brother who had passed away a few months earlier. Was suggested to me by the late Molly Halbert. Hope that clarifies things.

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Originally Posted by 5049

I mean, I just disagree, no reason to go back and forth, but I do want to debate one thing - 2015. That was caused by the sophomore class' inability to step up, not a JUCO or anyone else. That was on Dakota Hudson and Zac Houston. With those two guys we avoid the ten or so 8th inning flameouts, and we make a regional.

Really, the only inconsistent year Cohen had was 2015 and it was because of those young pitchers. Hudson and Houston were two high profile signees and we only got one year out of both, guess I could throw Vance Tatum in here too

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You're blaming THAT season on two guys that Butch hardly threw and when finally given a chance finished third and fourth on our staff in ERA in SEC play and had better stats that some of the guys we kept trotting out there? Take a gander and Ross Mitchell's and Preston Brown's stats for that year and get back to me. If anything we should have thrown Hudson and Houston more. The fact that one of the best hitters on that team was cut the next year says a lot about that team and what was wrong with it.

Don't look at it as a disagreement as much as it is an education. I believe Cohen knows how to win a National Championship here and the formula for that- which was why he hired Cann. And why he should hire the same type of coach with the exception that he will focus on the baseball team and not his side fling.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Don't look at it as a disagreement as much as it is an education. I believe Cohen knows how to win a National Championship here and the formula for that- which was why he hired Cann. And why he should hire the same type of coach with the exception that he will focus on the baseball team and not his side fling.

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Haha ok fella. You’re not educating me on anything. Cohen’s original formula was what worked, I guess you have forgotten 2013, after Burroughs left we started recruiting PG All Americans

If the education you propose is the same one the yielded your views on scholarships, I think I’ll pass LOL

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Originally Posted by 5049

Haha ok fella. You’re not educating me on anything. Cohen’s original formula was what worked, I guess you have forgotten 2013, after Burroughs left we started recruiting PG All Americans

If the education you propose is the same one the yielded your views on scholarships, I think I’ll pass LOL

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Yeah- I was pretty miserable during that SEC Championship run and two SR's with those PG All-American players.** Those PG All-Americans yielded two first round draft picks- including the SEC's first Triple Crown winner since 1984 and every member of the starting rotation and all but one position player was drafted or will be (I'm assuming Mangum and Pilkington will both be drafted) by MLB. The one player that wasn't drafted just so happened to be drafted only started over Hunter Stovall because Stovall was injured some that year- so if you count who would have been our "normal" starting second baseman it would be the entire team.

You're also mistaken about us not recruiting PG All-Americans under Burroughs- we started doing that from day one with Cohen starting with Chris Stratton and then followed that up with CT Bradford, Daryl Norris, Adam Frazier, and many others.

I am educating you. I'm really not trying to be cocky. It's just that there is a very clear formula and the one that you are promoting has been proven to NOT work and would end up hurting us. And I don't want to see any of our fans clamoring for something that I know won't work because I do know that the athletic department looks at these message boards to see fan opinions. Basically what you are advocating would be like someone saying that we should go back to Croom because they think that would work when everyone else knows it won't.

If you think that we have to recruit JUCO players you're vastly underestimating what our resources and potential actually are. We are elite and have the resources to be elite and have raised our profile quite a bit since Cohen took over. In some ways it reminds me of Alabama football before Saban- and I hope that Cohen and company do the same thing. Alabama was a very good program but had the desire to be the elite football program in the country. So what did they do? They threw an excessive amount of money at the best coach in America and landed him. I hope we do the same with our baseball program. At least that is what I would do if I was Cohen.

If you think I am wrong about the scholarships- you should ask a MLB scout. I think you will be surprised to find that they agree with me.

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Originally Posted by 5049

This is also why we should be using the JUCO system more.

Tanner Poole, Cole Marsh, Spencer Price off this team alone. Ryan Rigby, Trey Jolly, Luke Reynolds from the last few.

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Anybody that thinks jucos are the way to go are fools. Juco ball is weak from a talent perspective. We?ve tried it before and it failed. You can take a couple a year to fill holes from the draft but that?s about it.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Yeah- I was pretty miserable during that SEC Championship run and two SR's with those PG All-American players.** Those PG All-Americans yielded two first round draft picks- including the SEC's first Triple Crown winner since 1984 and every member of the starting rotation and all but one position player was drafted or will be (I'm assuming Mangum and Pilkington will both be drafted) by MLB. The one player that wasn't drafted just so happened to be drafted only started over Hunter Stovall because Stovall was injured some that year- so if you count who would have been our "normal" starting second baseman it would be the entire team.

You're also mistaken about us not recruiting PG All-Americans under Burroughs- we started doing that from day one with Cohen starting with Chris Stratton and then followed that up with CT Bradford, Daryl Norris, Adam Frazier, and many others.

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term flew right over your head

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

I am educating you. I'm really not trying to be cocky. It's just that there is a very clear formula and the one that you are promoting has been proven to NOT work and would end up hurting us. And I don't want to see any of our fans clamoring for something that I know won't work because I do know that the athletic department looks at these message boards to see fan opinions. Basically what you are advocating would be like someone saying that we should go back to Croom because they think that would work when everyone else knows it won't.

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sorry you don't have that power and you are wrong anyway because it already has worked, and works all over the country

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Originally Posted by RocketDawg

Disagree. I don't have a problem with them getting academic scholarships if they qualify. But they shouldn't be treated special just because they play baseball. Remember ... we are first and foremost an academic institution.

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Most of our baseball players are very sharp. An ACT 27/28 is a full ride scholarship., Would be Interested to know how many players are full ride academic scholarships are playing this year.