Tompkins Weekly

TC3 coach building a ‘baseball factory’



By Keith Raad
 
A diamond in the rough is being polished in Dryden under the tutelage of Tompkins Cortland Community College head baseball coach Ryan Stevens. With a plethora of years, stories and dusty Texas boots, Stevens is laying the foundation for a “baseball factory” at TC3.
 
To those in the Northeast, student-athlete success generally comes at a four-year NCAA Division I, II, or III college or university. The connotation of community college or junior college seems to be a whisper or quiet backup plan for aspiring athletes. In the South and West, the route of junior college baseball players to the professional ranks is more common.
 
“Down South, and what people don’t realize, that’s where a lot of the best athletes go,” Stevens says. “It’s the junior college route. Up here people don’t necessarily think of that. They think about four-year college, four-year college, four-year college.”
 
Both realistic and ideal for some student-athletes who might not be as academically inclined as others they are competing against, attending junior college can be a strategic move.
 
There are three general routes to being drafted by a Major League Baseball franchise. High school seniors, such as Derek Jeter, can be drafted with the ability to forego college. However, once a high school senior decides to attend a four-year university like draft powerhouses UCLA or Vanderbilt, he must commit to at least three years at that school or be 21 years old to be eligible for the draft. A loophole in the system exists with junior colleges. Regardless of the number of years at that school, student-athletes can be drafted immediately.
 
Transcendent talents like Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals have taken the junior college route, which enables high school athletes to test their strengths against older guys without the commitment of the four-year college rules.
 
Stevens takes on the task of laying the foundation for a baseball powerhouse in upstate New York. The Dryden High School graduate returned to TC3 in 2014 after seven years of professional baseball in Texas and four-and-a-half years as a scout for the Washington Nationals.
 
Between his tenure as an assistant at TC3 in the mid-2000s and his return, his eyes, mind and attitude have shifted. The untrained eye views results and box scores on the surface. However, the eyes of a scout are completely different.
 
“There’s a whole different level of items,” Stevens says. “You watch the body of the athlete, how their makeup is developed, how their arms hang, how their body is changing, their body movement, their swing, their athleticism.”
 
Depending on the organization, scouts receive an agenda or goal that the front office decides is the best pathway for player development. With Washington, Stevens’ job in the west-Texas area involved tracking down big-bodied athletes. He was responsible for watching professional, independent, college and junior college athletes. “Some of the best college baseball teams I’ve ever seen have been junior college teams,” he says.
 
Now that his approach has changed and the keys are in his hands at TC3, it’s time to lay the bricks on a new foundation. “I think there are a lot of positives for it and I think you’re in a good setting here,” Stevens said. “It’s in a beautiful part of the country. I think Dryden’s a great town.”
 
His goal is to create a program that can churn out talented student-athletes on the field and in the classroom. While there are those who dream of stepping onto a professional baseball field as a draft pick after a short career in junior college, many choose this pathway to boost their academic standing and transfer to a four-year university.
 
“They can improve their play, they can improve their grades, play early and then their list of three or four schools turns into 50 or more schools,” Stevens says.
 
The “Rocket” himself, Roger Clemens, who pitched for the New York Yankees, attended San Jacinto College North, transferred to the University of Texas-Austin and then joined an elite club of just four pitchers to record more than 4,000 strikeouts in a career.
 
Though in its infancy, the TC3 “baseball factory” is picking up steam thanks to strong connections. In his introductory period with the TC3 baseball program, Stevens stretches his limbs with connections in Texas in the Independent Professional Continental Baseball League and among several other coaches and staff members at four-year colleges and universities.
 
“You’re going to see in the next couple of years someone out of this program that will be kicking around the minor leagues,” Stevens says. “They will make it to pro ball. Somebody will do that from this school. College baseball and professional baseball are very unique and unlike any other sport with player development.”

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