The Andrew Oliver case against the NCAA finished yesterday January 13th according to court records obtained by The College Baseball Blog. The judge ended up taking the case under advisement and ordered both parties to file findings of fact and conclusions of law by January 23rd. After that, he will deliberate the case and issue an opinion in a week or two. We should see a decision at the end of January or at the beginning of February. Read the rest of this entry »

The College Baseball Blog will be providing roundtable discussions during the season on some of the big issues around college baseball. We invited Swarthmore Assistant Coach Jordan Wyckoff to join our writers to discuss some of the rule changes for the 2009 NCAA season. Some of the changes are minor and others focus on the safety of the players and on the field personnel. We will also see a few changes in the amount of conferences each team is allowed on offense and defense. We comment on a bunch of the changes below. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE

The NCAA Baseball Research Panel, a group charged with maintaining the protocol for testing baseball bats in the college game, has recommended changes to the means for measuring performance in those tests.

The panel recommended replacing the “ball exit-speed ratio” with a “ball-bat coefficient of restitution” or BBCOR, because the latter eliminates discrepancies with different length bats and is a more direct measure of bat performance. At its meeting in July, the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee, which oversees and determines the actual performance level of bats, approved the new protocol and established the performance standard based on data collected from available wooden bats.
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Texas A&M University athletic director Bill Byrne writes a weekly newsletter to fans addressing the state of the athletic program, fan questions and concerns, and NCAA issues. In this week’s newsletter Byrne addressed a memo received from the NCAA regarding concerns of travel costs to various NCAA Championships. College baseball could be one of the main sports greatly impacted by any potential rule changes to address this concern. Byrne had the following to say on the subject: Read the rest of this entry »

The official NCAA Blog has put out a great post about some of the potential rule changes around College Baseball for next season. The biggest change is the fact that they will require base coaches to wear a helmet next season following the lead of Major League Baseball after the unfortunate death of a minor league coach in 2007. One of the other rule changes deal with speeding up the game with less conferences with umpires and on the mound. The final rule change is to eliminate all the huddling around home plate by a team after a home run or doing live play where teammates will come out of the dugout. I actually saw this happen last season during a Division 2 matchup between Franklin Pierce and Assumption. The Franklin Pierce benched emptied to congratulate the running scoring but the ball ended up getting away from the infield and going into the middle of the players coming onto the field. We were able to secure video of Jim Paronto talking about the rule changes. Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Oliver BY MATT STRASEN, THE OKLAHOMAN

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE

Andrew Oliver’s attorney says his client will be there when State starts classes next week. The real question is, will Oliver return to the mound for the Cowboys?

Until late spring, Oliver was OSU’s pitching ace, a sophomore left-hander capable of carrying the Cowboys to the College World Series. In the last two years, Oliver had become such a hot prospect that Scott Boras, one of the most powerful agents in baseball, wanted him as a client.

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The Dallas Morning News takes a look at equivalency sport scholarships with an interesting read:

The Scholarship Game: An examination of how universities divvy up scholarship money and the impact on student athletes.

After years of playing baseball with the elite Dallas Mustangs youth travel team, Tyler Sibley is weighing scholarship offers to play shortstop at a Division I school next fall.

The financial aid Sibley receives in college won’t come close to covering the money his father, Tim, has spent getting him to this point.

The same can be said for countless other athletes across North Texas whose parents often spend well in excess of $25,000 so their kids can compete at the highest levels in youth sports such as baseball, swimming, soccer, tennis and golf. Read the rest of this entry »