When third baseman Matt Mangini decided to transfer to Oklahoma State this past summer, it marked the end of an exodus of six position players from last year’s lineup. So naturally, headed into this season there were a lot of holes to fill.
“We lost a lot of guys from last year’s team,” coach Elliott Avent said. “And not only a lot of guys from last year’s team, but a lot of guys who had played for us for a while.”
After having a steady lineup for a couple of years, there were not a lot of guys on the bench just waiting to get their turns. So recruiting was an urgent process this off-season.
Ironically, Avent’s first recruit was not a player but a coach. Avent hired Tom Holliday — former pitching coach at Texas — in July to be the assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator.
But even with the new addition, the question remained as to what direction recruiting should take.
“Elliott said he wasn’t satisfied with the returning squad as it was. So we went into a scramble in July,” Holliday said. “And quite frankly you’re not going to get blue chip [high school players] in July, because there are just too many people working at this business to have them sitting out there.”
So they decided to focus their efforts on bringing in transfers from other schools around the country. And luckily for N.C. State, Holliday had the connections to make it happen. Having been around the college game for 30 years, he got to work. He recruited guys he had previously recruited when they were in high school and even found one player — senior infielder Vince Gutierrez — who was playing for a coach who had actually played for Holliday in the past.
“We had to unturn some stones to find some guys,” Holliday said.
In total, last year’s recruiting class included eight transfers from either a junior college or a four-year university. And according to Avent and Holliday, transfers can help a team win now, more so than a freshman straight out of high school.
“The key was we just needed some experience — some guys who had played,” Holliday said. “Whether they had had high levels of success didn’t really matter. We were hunting for some experience.”
Most came from the junior college ranks, but a few came from other four-year institutions, which can make the process a little more complicated.
Sophomore pitcher Clayton Shunick, who played last season at Georgia State University, said his transfer process was a difficult one because of the reluctance of the Georgia State coach to release him.
“I had to go through a couple of different processes and some hearings,” Shunick said. “And eventually I figured out where I was allowed to go and where I wasn’t allowed to go. It was kind of a big ordeal for me because it took the entire summer.”
If it weren’t for a change in the rules made around a decade ago, transferring schools without penalty would have been impossible in baseball. In Division I football and basketball, if a player transfers from one four-year school to another, the athlete is forced to sit out for one year.
But in baseball, and all other sports, the NCAA changed the rules to allow an athlete one move without penalty as long as the player’s previous coach agrees to release him.
According to Avent and Holliday, that is when recruiting changed around the country at the Division I level.
“Recruiting in college baseball shifted when they made the release rule,” Holliday said.
Avent, though, was not ready to get involved in the practice of accepting transfers back then.
“When the transferring first started about 10 years ago, everybody was doing it,” he said. “But I was vehemently opposed to it.
“I don’t think it belongs in college [sports]. They should have to sit out just like football and basketball. It’s the wrong thing to say to guys. You’re here to get an education.”
But despite his objections, Avent did finally concede after realizing he could not compete without joining in with the rest of the programs around the country.
“For three or four years we wouldn’t allow it here. We thought it was wrong,” Avent said. “But then I started getting beat by some of those people. We started playing a Wake Forest or a Clemson and we’d say, ‘Where did that guy come from?’ and ‘Oh, he was at St. John’s last year’ or ‘He was at Washington State last year.’ I’m against it, but if the NCAA is going to continue to allow it, then I’m certainly going to play the game everyone else is playing.”
To play “the game” against the other teams, it is a year-round commitment, according to Holliday. He said throughout the years he’s learned to keep his eyes and ears open for people who have been released by other schools or are interested in doing so.
“There are good players leaving for funny reasons all over the country,” Holliday said. “Some guys get homesick and they don’t want to go back to school or some guys are unhappy over playing time. And yet they were big recruits the year before. These kids were promised things as a freshman but were not ready to play. So then they leave and really the ripe time is in that second year to go get them.”
He also said the summer leagues around the country — like the Cape Cod League in Massachusetts, where a handful of State’s players played this past summer — has given potential transfer players a place to showcase their talents for other schools.
Shunick played in the Cape Cod League this summer before he had decided where he was going to transfer. But while playing in the league he met three Pack players — juniors Ryan Pond and Andrew Brackman, and sophomore Eric Surkamp — who influenced his decision to make the move to Raleigh.
“I heard firsthand from those guys what was going on here,” Shunick said. “And I knew they were going to be competing for a national championship and that was something I would like to be a part of.”
The appeal of playing big-time college baseball is a common theme for most of the transfers on this year’s team.
Senior infielder Ryan Howard came to State from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas — a Division II school — after transferring there from Paris Junior College.
Howard, whose father and uncle both played college baseball at Division I schools — Texas A&M and Arkansas respectively — said playing at this level was always his primary goal.
“Everybody grows up saying they want to play in the major leagues, but I grew up wanting to play Division I college baseball,” Howard said.
For others, however, the exposure that goes along with playing major college baseball was the reason for transferring.
Junior first baseman/designated hitter Mike Roskopf, who played at Yavapai College in Arizona before joining the Pack, which ironically is the same college Holliday played at in the ’70s before transferring to Miami, said he hopes playing in a major conference will help his draft status.
“Being in a Division I school in the ACC, I’m playing with the best college players that are out there,” he said. “And now, instead of being compared to junior college baseball players, I’m getting compared to the best there is.”
For redshirt sophomore Pat Ferguson, though, his journey to State was one of singular purpose. Ferguson, a high school teammate of former Pack star and current minor leaguer in the Boston Red Sox organization Aaron Bates, wanted to come to Raleigh because of the way Bates talked about the school.
So after a redshirt year at Loyola Marymount and a year at Saddleback Community College, Ferguson actually e-mailed the coaching staff at State and initiated the transfer process himself. And now after being here for a few months, he realizes what Bates was raving about.
“It’s been a blast,” Ferguson said. “The spirit around the school is like nothing I’ve ever seen back home in California. Not many of those schools are like this. Having the town around all the sports and with the fans, it’s a lot of fun.”
So far this season, the transfers have made the “immediate impact” Avent and Holliday were looking for as five of the eight transfers have started in at least three of the Pack’s five games.
And junior third baseman Joe Florio, who transferred from Indian River Community College in Ft. Pierce, Fl., is batting .417, which leads all State players with at least ten at-bats.
For Avent, though, the process still remains a risky one and one he would rather not have to do. But now that he’s settled on the fact he has to to compete, he’s committed to doing it right and to doing the leg work it takes to make it successful.
“We check these guys out and they check us out the best they can. But it’s tough taking a player who’s been somewhere two years and trying to mold him into what you think it takes to be a winner and into what this team needs,” Avent said. “But we did a pretty good job checking these guys out. And we got some really tremendous people in here that can really help this team win.”
