welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony evil and today we're going to get some insight into baseball and how they recruited baseball so my guest today is tommy gentle and he's a baseball player at the college level and welcome to  stillman college in alabama and then now affiliation so well why don't we go back into high school when did you start thinking about college at the high school level it was a freshman year senior year when does the whole recruiting process start i mean my freshman year since i got into got into high school i always knew i wanted to play college ball i mean my dream is to play professional baseball as most people have so right off the bat i was like you know i want to do this so you know i saw i didn't start looking at schools until probably probably my junior high school ok but the i just kept working at baseball playing every day and trying to get myself to where started looking at different options and i laid out you know ok my number one my number two my number three school and then i had obviously a reach school and kind of the schools i thought i could get into and play there and stuff like that so i looked at the college i looked at different things i like that you know who's on the on the team you know there's a look like i'm going to be able to you know play there as far as grades as far's actual ability and i kind of went from there and the did how did you end up high school from from there to broke down what was the process that ended up going through that well actually i was talking to all rockers my first was i was my dream school i was want to go to rockers and  rockers so it was like our it just go go to brooke go for two years get your grades good get everything under your belt prove you can play the college baseball player prove you can do it in the classroom and then you know then we'll take a look at you top ten in e r i you know so i really pushed myself specially coming back off of a knee injury which was a pretty tough thing for me i had to battle can walk all summer and stuff like that sort of go into the fall and prove for myself to get a job you know and so it comes down  in high school grades in an athletic mean means a lot yes about college coeds it definitely does because you know i had a three point eight g p a coming out of high school with a more high school and i was hoping that would kind enough with the grade point average and it wasn't you know it was all about the s a t s i'm just not a good test taker personally so it was one of those situations where i work hard at it but for whatever reason when i'm sitting in front of the for the test i can do it just looking through stuff and he came across my son i was getting calls from from everywhere i was in calls from san francisco i was in calls from iowa places i never even heard of were calling me giving me good scholarships so then i came across the woman was actually a funny story because he called me and goes we want to give you a scholarship for fifteen hundred a semester which i was thinkin wow that's awesome so we're on the bus to go down to florida with brooke though  cause me goes i gave away a scholarship what do you mean you gave away my scholarship and he goes i gave away your scholarship to a kid in florida really wanted them but now we want you know for rot so he upped the scholarship i thought i completely lost everything and cloud so i ended up getting a full ride there and unfortunately things then worked out you know for a number of different reasons you know i wish them all the best and hope to have you know good success going forward but it just didn't work out personally for me so how long did you stay he kind of was like and i heard from some people that he was interested because at that point you can't really talk to anybody because you're still on contract right so then once i got the permission to contact people from stillman then i was able to talk to him and he was like you know i've seen you pitch and she were thirteen so you want to come here and i said absolutely i love the place for it well so now you're you're close to graduating soon right you know another year or so for actually being that i  dorms you check into different things get your classes stuff like that and then once you're kind of all settled in and start taking classes then baseball starts up for you they usually give you a week or two to tanith you know feel your way around and kind of start gaining you know confidence and what you're doing so then start a practice usually it's like kind of like practice to get everybody together and stuff like that and then we go from there then we start playing different schools that fall ball that fall off yes so during fall  you know first for some schools it's a little bit different we have a little bit more of a relaxed type atmosphere which i definitely like it's it's nice to be the show up and not feel like you're you know pressed into situations and stuff like that  but it's hard work it's it's one hundred percent hard work so being that you went to three different schools what's what's the difference between the three different schools well in junior college it's a little bit different because you have you know  many players they want to try out so i remember my freshman year brooke bell i was still on crutches at this point when i had my first practice and there's one hundred fifty guys very well so nothing was guaranteed and even if you were recruited by johnny  whatever the situation was there was a good amount of people there so you know and the way that kind of worked out was a lot of the people you know if you're looking at a guy that six four you know in the outfield thrown you know seems the home plate and what happened people you know you look around like are in a lot of layers so that was kind of the feel of birkdale then the the division two is more you can get scholarships from there so you kind have a better feel of what's going on because you're like ok i will this guy got a scholarship this guy got a job this guy's a walk on so he's going to have to really work as you know but off to get it where it needs to be so you kind of know where you're at in your practice in pretty much all year did they give you my regimen like in the with them in the winter months and what are you doing at the like the christmas break and things like that well the fall is pretty much to try to find out that you know  to prepare for next year when you go to the offseason they give you a little sheet to kind of go through your workouts and stuff like that and some guys are a little bit different of what they want to do but once you've proven yourself you know the coach is usually ok you know you know what to do to get it done to get ready for the season and then once you get back you know the need then you start up heavy you know you start really working hard and dom but the games are an every day of a day a couple of games during the week and then the weekend how does a pretty much work february so you'll be ready playing somewhere so so basically what is some of the things that you can you can say about recruiting what are some of the recruiting aspect that college coaches look for in players not just pitchers but maybe outfielders a meal there's what are they looking for well they're looking for hard workers they're not looking for people that are going to come in and you know think that they're the best because you know you're not going to get better that way you know and that's just a bad situation for a team you don't want the guy that thinks all amazing coming in as a freshman and you don't know you know you want to be the senior you want the guy that's going to keep working keep doing everything keep her dress and do everything the right way that's what they look for and the biggest thing is to really contact people because if if i'm a college coach and i'm sitting in the office and i'm looking at a couple different guys right that i know from experience whether one of my friends called me and told me about him or whatever the situation is you know if you want to go to a school you have to reach out and contact these people right and there's so many high school ball players that want to play college i want to play pro right it's impossible to think that they're going to get to see everybody so if you call them go to the camps do showcases things like that they start hearing your name so the more you reach out to them right the more familiar some networking and being able to talk to people you're going to get that fair look as if if if they know your name then they're like oh you know i know this kid and those gentlemen we want to see these guys are you know he's moving the ball around or you know from the outfield hit so it's really about knowing the people and talking and getting out there so now the mom and dad get involved when when you start looking at schools you know you said junior you started yet looking so they get involved yeah my dad definitely help me big time my mom's not too you know she just doesn't know that much about it you know she was supportive through the entire thing my dad really stuck his neck out really tried to help me to get some work we did a bunch of different recruiting profiles and stuff like that years work the best as far as because it sent everything out i did dom be recruited dot com that was good but the coaches just view the profiles and stuff like that they don't really you know it's just kind of like hit or miss where they find you're not right if it's sitting in front of their desk and they see it you know they can say are well here's a number might as well call in and see what's going on that's good then and so did you visit a lot of the schools yes i made a bunch of visits what's the recruiting process when you go visit the schools what are they doing with you well they show you the campus they walking around they'll show you the different facilities you know the biggest thing is the ask questions because even the simplest little thing that you think all that's that's automatic not because every single school is completely different so if you ask even even you'll see silly questions you know they might get a different answer face do i fit on the team because if a guy i know when i came back from stillman i was looking to go to rockers right so i sat down with coach lit and he's a great guy you know i've known him since i went to all the rockers camps and stuff like that and i sat down with him i said you know i'm really i really want to come here and he said it was any other year we would be extremely interested a bit seven left handed pitchers of the one so to spend any scholarship money or or anything like that  on the left and a pitcher when you have seven of them it's tough you know he's like i need outfielders i need shortstops and that's completely understandable so there's a come down to business in as well so so a kid that's out there that's an outfielder if the school has a lot of outfielders that a freshm sophomore is in a can to recruit that kid because unless he's a phenomenal athlete of some sort yet i would say yes because if you're looking at it from their perspective and that's why it's important for kids to try to play as many positions as possible you know for me it's trying to fit into every single type of role if i if somebody the lefty specialist i can fit in there if i need to close or can fit in there i mean the starter like i'd normally do you know i can fit in there i can fit in different roles in the long as i'm pitching around the field you know i can do something about it but if you're a second baseman right don't just say well i'm a second baseman what if the college coach says the you know you're going to start as a shortstop are you going to no not going to do that i'm just going to set the batch right so it's good to be versatile and be able to move the ball a different positions and adapt to different roles and that's great so so now travel so we're actually going to wife for for our spring trip we have three spring trips this year the first one's wife for a week and then we're going to south carolina north carolina so you do some traveling and then in conference we have some teams in rhode island we have teams so there is a lot of travel there good so know do you you do a lot of parents ask it's all about the sport and nothing about academics what do you say about that anyway really keep on me about it and i know coach johnson was always saying everybody better graduate and you know if he if you need any help with anything he would help you find a tutor or anything like that coach lang it helps a lot with it  so it's definitely and what's the grade that you need to to stay on the team you need to point out ok the n c a a actually just changed the rules on them credits was they used to just be you had have a twelve credits per semester need twenty seven throughout the year so now if you have a bad fall or something happens or something like that you can make up for it in the spring so so students that are doing really well in the classroom they like those kids a lot more than the two point zero type yes and it also helps recruiting too because you have the exact same player right even if the kids a little bit better right and this guy has a higher safety scores but this guy doesn't you know you're going to go with the guy with the higher if he scores because you know he's not going to walk out to me personally i kind of want to stay local but the recruiting profile really was the big thing because then all of a sudden the school started calling me right so that was the big difference because before it was like all right now i got to find the score and i want to go to school one of the school and some of the schools are like you know you mean here of it but you would actually love b m x so look online look at different places you know talk to different people say because i have bodies all over the country that play different schools so whether it's in south carolina north carolina california oregon wherever it is you know i have a lot of buddies i go different places now is the really got to find a good fit this the summer leagues in new jersey have a team in trenton i played play for a team with out of berkeley heights so for me i want to play pro ball so i really want to get in front of scouts they also have like you know leagues like the jersey shore league were to just kind of like you know play in both and get better and stuff like that but they also have the scout leagues where if you really impress somebody you know you can have a chance play for a ball so now you're you role to make goes to be to become a professional baseball player yes so what are some of the things you're looking at now with only a year or two left the school that is propelling you into looking at professional baseball what's what some of the avenues that you're taking i left i was eighty four and then it just kept climbing and now i'm in the high eighty's was the one i'm feeling good and drawn while you know i can get it up there i mean he one hundred percent helped me more than more than any pitching coach i want to you know he teaches the kids and it's it's getting good experience and he played eleven years in the big leagues so you know he's he's been helping me out a lot with that and just talking to different people i have some buddies in the royals organization out but he's up played one of the coaches damn palombo he's a scout for a number of years he also coach john jack so he knows all the scouts and if there's somebody that can play for a ball you know he's going to get him in front of them and try to help them out you know and it's a difficult  ultimate goal what's your mindset how do you keep your mindset as a positive mindset where you just gotta say you know what i'm going to keep working harder than the next guy and you know there's a lot of things i mean it's luck it is i mean unless you're throwing ninety seven ninety eight and you're a stand out guy i mean i'm only five ten so to be a smaller guy you get overlooked but you know if you keep your numbers right you talk to a lot of people you know you try to get your fa through the detour process you know that did you set up tours with each one of the schools or was it your dad set them up or did you have a league involved from you know because you're still in high school looking at schools and you're hurt yeah so that doesn't help as well so you depending primarily on you dad to to do a lot of this work i mean he helped me a big time i had i was i was fortunate to have a lot of people around me that wanted to help me and i've always been a hard worker so i think that you know people kind of helped me out with that if i would have kind of sat back and did nothing that i don't think that would help me my high school  helping me out with trying to find the school that i wanted to go to my dad did a great job and i did a lot of things on my own too as far as emailing schools and trying to contact them once they set up the you know the recruiting and stuff like that now you can start talking after july first your junior year you actually start calling and getting you know well coming at the end of our show usually ask my guests what advice do you want to give to the moms and dads out there that their sons  e ready to go to college want to play at the college level for baseball what advice do you want to give those families find the right fit because you don't want to end up somewhere where you're not happy even if it's you're getting a good scholarship to that school doesn't mean that you're going to be happy there as far as finding schools keep contacting people keep on them you know even if you have to call every day this is your dream school make it known that to the coach that you want to be there and you're going to be the hardest working can me and you're going get your full potential great well thank you very much for coming i appreciate thanks for having us yeah no problem so you've been watching the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony