By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The NCAA Baseball Rules Committee has taken the first step to prevent pitching coaches from taking excessive time to call pitches by proposing an experimental 20-second pitch clock rule with runners on base for the 2016 season.

If approved, any conference in NCAA Divisions I, II and III can apply to the committee if the conference wishes to implement the rule.

The issue takes place when a coach who calls pitches in the dugout takes an unusually long amount of time to relay a pitch to the catcher with a runner or runners on base and essentially changes the tempo of the game.

At the recent College World Series, several pitchers took close to a minute to throw pitches after they initially received the ball.

The delay took place as the catcher waited patiently for the pitch to be called by his pitching coach in the dugout.

Whether it was a tactic to slow the game down to a crawl to mess with the offensive team’s momentum or the pitching coach was utilizing every bit of data from his charts to make an informed pitch decision which took extra time, it caught the attention of umpires, administrators and opposing coaches.

There is already a 20-second pitch clock rule with no runners on base.

The proposal must be approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel before it can be implemented. The panel was scheduled to discuss the Baseball Rules Committee’s proposal on a conference call Aug. 26 after Collegiate Baseball went to press.

Several coaches over the last few NCAA Division I baseball tournaments have been extremely slow at calling pitches from the dugout with runners on base, according to coaches who alerted Collegiate Baseball of this problem.

The coaches who contacted Collegiate Baseball feel that this practice must be stopped for the integrity and growth of the game.

These coaches feel fans are turned off by slow play. In addition, coaches who utilize this tactic risk more errors by their defense who aren’t focused as they wait and wait for the pitch to be called.

According to one member of the Rules Committee, who wished not to be identified, this tactic concerns executives of ESPN because of the idle time between pitches which causes a frustrating problem during telecasts.

To read more of this article, purchase the Sept. 4, 2015 edition of Collegiate Baseball by CLICKING HERE.

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

BATON ROUGE, La. — Raising money for baseball programs can take many different avenues.

For years, LSU has led the nation in average and total college baseball attendance.

During the past season, LSU attracted 364,700 fans over 34 dates for an average of 10,726 per game.

In 2014, the Tigers saw 424,321 file through the turnstiles. In 39 dates, the average game attendance was 10,880.

During the 2014 season, it was reported that ticket sales eclipsed $2.6 million.

Beyond what huge crowds bring in to LSU, Head Baseball Coach Paul Mainieri said he has a separate account which the baseball program utilizes.

“We actually call it our Coaches’ Committee,” said Mainieri.

“The concept started when Skip Bertman came to LSU. He started with a small group of seven. Essentially, they were an inner circle for Skip and helped him do various things.

“For example, a lot of it was bartering or gift in kind. If a new outfield fence was needed, there was a member on his Coaches’ Committee who was from a fencing company. His company would put up a new fence for him.

“As the committee started to grow, dues were paid. Now, we have gotten to the point where the Coaches’ Committee isn’t an intimate little group any more. It includes about 250 people. Those people all pay different levels of annual dues ranging from $300 at the lowest level to $750 on the next level to $1,500 on our high end.

“When you do the math, it’s quite a bit of money that these people are putting into our program. It allows us to do certain things that we wouldn’t be able to do even with a pretty nice budget at LSU. It allows us to have plenty of baseballs so we can hit with new baseballs during batting practice.

“If we need a pitching machine or whatever it may be, it is a great fund to have for those kinds of things. Whenever we spend money from that fund, we must go through the proper purchasing procedure protocol which ultimately has the approval of our athletics director.”

Mainieri talked about another revenue stream for his program.

“After we won the national title in 2009, we had several great events for LSU fans across the state which they promoted as An Evening With The Coach. I would bring the national championship trophy, and we would have pictures taken with the trophy, the donor and myself. Some of those nights, we would take in as much as $20,000 from donations to the baseball program.

“A couple hundred people would come to the event, and they would pay a fee to have dinner. The host family would provide the catering and so forth. So there would be no overhead for us. Then I would give a talk with a few stories.

“When I did three or four of those events during the course of the summer, it turned into a nice windfall for our baseball program.”

Mainieri, who was the head coach at Notre Dame prior to LSU, said that when he got to the school, the Fighting Irish typically had 50-100 fans a game. That was it.

He wasn’t allowed to raise any money in the traditional sense because Notre Dame has a special group of people who do this for the entire university.

Mainieri was able to have a pre-season dinner which changed the way people perceived his program in the area.

“A few years into my tenure there, the associate athletic director Bill Scholl (now the Athletics’ Director at Marquette) and I sat down and thought up ways to create more interest in the baseball program at Notre Dame.

“We decided to have a pre-season dinner to promote the upcoming season in the middle of February. We didn’t play a home game until April which was 20 games into the season. So we thought this would be a good time to have it.

To read more of this story, purchase the Sept. 4, 2015 edition by CLICKING HERE.

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Raising money through big donors is another option for baseball programs.

Craig Keilitz, executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association, discussed how he would tackle fund raising if he were a baseball coach.

Keilitz previously was the athletics director at High Point University and also worked in athletics’ administration at Wake Forest for a number of years.

“It certainly depends on what level of baseball you are coaching at,” said Keilitz.

“But it is important to pull people in who have an interest in your program. I feel that people want to invest in something that they feel will be successful. So if your baseball program is having success on the field, in the classroom and in the community, that helps tremendously.

“Donors must get to know your student athletes. This gives you the best opportunity, in my opinion, to raise funds.

“But there is a problem that people must realize. Someone may give your program money. Then they feel they have a say in how you do business. So it is a delicate balancing act on how you accept money and at the same time make sure donors are there to support you and not make decisions.”

Keilitz was asked to give his list of fund raisers that help athletics’ departments thrive.

“It is extremely important to find out how many hours you are actually putting into a fund raiser to find out if it really is cost effective.

“For instance, golf tournaments might not be as big of an income producer when you factor in the amount of time involved.

“The amount of money made might not be that much after paying for golf greens’ fees, golf carts, lunch, prizes and all of those types of things.

“While you might make a few thousand dollars, these events take a considerable amount of time.

“I feel an important consideration in fund raising is what the student athlete needs and not necessarily what you as the coach wants. Usually people close to your program who are willing can invest in that vision.

“We had great success at several universities working with parents of student athletes. They wanted to see their kids have the best and really enjoyed what the coach was doing with their son.

“A lot of times, you let the donor tell you what they would like to give. Let’s say you want to build new batting cages or redo the locker room. You talk about what this will do for your program and what it does for the development of the student athlete. People who are able to give money understand the needs of programs asking for donations whether it be a church, local hospital or school they graduated from.

“The people who are willing to talk to you about issues like this are a little more philanthropic. So I would talk to the donor about what our vision was and let them decide on the amount they were comfortable giving.”

To read more of this story, purchase the Sept. 4, 2015 edition of Collegiate Baseball by CLICKING HERE.