Play baseball at VMI or attend USNA without playing baseball

hopefulparent

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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?
 
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?
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 an dit will prepare him pretty well for a career as a military officer if that is what he dedices 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.
 
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