Play baseball at VMI or attend USNA without playing baseball

[hopefulparent]

DS is USNA candidate and seems to have very good chance of receiving appointment. However, baseball team does not need any more players at his position (at this time). Has chance to attend VMI and play baseball. Has played baseball his whole life with hopes of playing in college some day. Now he may have to choose. Any comments?

 

[usna1985]

I'll be blunt here . . . is his primary interest education and serving his country or playing baseball? And, yes, I'm being perfectly serious.

If your son is good enough to play baseball in the pros, I would think some top baseball school would be actively recruiting him. In that case, he should attend such a school and hope things go well and that he'll be drafted into the major leagues.

If the issue is that your son wants to play baseball at SOME college and USNA won't offer that option, then he should look at schools where he can play baseball. VMI is a great school with a great alumni network and provides the opportunity to go into the military. However, it's not the only school in that category. And, academically, it isn't generally considered to be as strong/competitive as USNA or the other SAs. I'm not knocking VMI, just being realistic.

If his primary motivation is to be in the USN or USMC and he really wants to attend USNA, then he must consider whether that triumphs over his love of baseball. I don't think anyone other than your son can answer this question.

 

[Mongo]

USNA has fewer scholarships and a lot more walkons than civilian colleges. And due to the nature of the beast, is a lot more unstable. Trust me from first hand experience, one can go from seventh on the depth chart to first in the course of a season.

Academics are difficult.

One doesn't have to play sports to maintain their "scholarship".

The "two for seven" will always get a few.

 

[MakeItHappen]

USNA.
We always need players at his position. You just climb the depth chart. If not they got things to do to stay busy. Good Luck!

 

[fishbowl]

hopefulparent - all the things that USNA1985 wrote are key considerations. I would also add that it doesn't cost anything (other than his time) for your DS to complete the necessary application steps. As he moves through the process of completing the USNA application, getting his DODMERB physical and applying for a nomination, he will gather more information that will help with his decision. However, if the case is that he is deciding whether to sign some sort of NCAA letter of intent to attend VMI, that is something different.

 

[bruno]

This same thread was posted in the Military college Forum so I'll just post the same response that I posted there:

The comment that I could offer here and it's JUST MY OPINION- life is about making choices and he needs to decide how important college baseball is to him compared to how important is it to be a career Naval Officer?. I am a huge VMI fan- but as a retired Army officer, I would be dishonest if I opined anything other than that for a professional military officer the source that best prepares you to become a successful junior officer is the service academy. Further, while officers coming in from other sources will fairly rapidly catch up to their Academy peers- they will never be able to replicate the huge alumni connection that will surround them during their military career- not something to ignore if you really "Know" that you want to be a professional military officer. (I would say that this is not true for the USMC which has never been officered primarily by USNA grads- there may be a lot of them but it's not the same as the Army and Navy). So from my perspective if his major goal in life is to be a Navy Officer- and has an appointment to USNA- then he ought to take his chances at not winning a starting spot on the baseball team.
VMI has a very good D1 baseball program these days, and was ranked in the top 25 last year, but college baseball is the end of the line for virtually all of those players. For sure he can, and a lot of guys do, go thru the Navy ROTC program at VMI and get commissioned as Navy Officers, but if that is his primary goal in life and he has the chance to go to USNA then IMO this is not much of a decision.

ON THE OTHER HAND- If he is not sure if he wants to go into the Navy, but is sure that he wants to go to a military college, and the VMI Baseball coach is talking to him then that is a different story. In that case- VMI would be a good choice IMO. It is the highest rated SMC academically in all of the national rankings (including Forbes, USNews etc...), with an extremely traditional approach to its military program (IE it is physically and emotionally demanding) which produces a really tight knit bond with your classmates and fellow alumni that will serve you well for the rest of your life in whatever field you wind up in ,and it will require him to take 4 years of ROTC and will prepare him pretty well for a career as a military officer if that is what he decides to do. Perhaps not all of the advantages that an SA graduate would have but a lot of good prep none the less.
And- VMI will encourage but not require your son to take a commission to graduate, so if he is uncertain about his career goals then this is a better choice IMO.

Keep in mind that there are no guarantees with a D1 sports program- if literally the only reason he is thinking of this as a difficult choice is because he is locked out of a position at USNA and has a position lock at VMI then he also ought to think about that some. Those things are pretty dynamic.